Never Good Enough
by Saramis Kismet
Summary: In the wake of facing his future, Danny must fight a new enemy with frightening powers. He knows the power of choices now, but that doesn't mean he'll make the right ones without some help. UPDATED FINALLY
1. Open Doors

**Never Good Enough**

_Author's Notes: I'm going to attempt to write both this and Eternal at the same time. (By the way, someone review that!) Who thinks this is going to spell disaster?_

_This is the prequel to Cold As Ice. Lucky for anyone who hasn't read that, you don't need to have read it to know what goes on here. It takes place about, say, a month after Ultimate Enemy. Let's pretend new episodes haven't happened yet, shall we?_

_Disclaimer: Don't own anything about this story other than the main ghost here… everything else belongs to Butch Hartman, Nickelodeon, etc.

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**Open Doors**

The day had finally come.

It had taken nearly ten months of having to bear through this torture, but the end was at last in sight.

Were those angels singing hymns from heaven above?

The bell had rung, the doors were open, and he was absolutely positively free from one burden on his shoulders for the next three months.

Grinning broadly, he leapt from his desk, dragged the girl sitting next to him out into the hallway. In his ecstasy he grabbed her other hand and did a sort of dance, spinning her around and laughing. It was difficult to do in the thick crowds leaving their classrooms, but he had somehow managed to drag her into a tango. Her eyes were soup bowls as she found herself trapped in his delight, unable to break away from the routine.

"Summer!" he cried, letting go of her hands and doing another spin before settling himself. No one had taken heed of his behavior because, for the most part, the rest of the world was feeling like doing the same thing.

"Danny, please, cut it out," Sam said, even though she was laughing all the same. She ran a hand through the hair Danny's little number had tangled.

Finally still, Danny shot her a grin and said, "Easy for you to say. You didn't narrowly escape another month of summer school with Lancer, did you?"

An arm was thrown over his shoulder from behind him and the third member of the trio suddenly appeared in his peripheral vision. His other arm was around Sam's shoulders so that the two were supporting him. He didn't look nearly as lively as Danny did.

"You okay?" asked Sam, raising a concerned brow.

"No," he mumbled despairingly.

Danny shrugged off his arm indignantly. "Tucker, I'm happy. You're throwing off my happiness. It's now, officially, summer, and you're sulking. Why?"

He said something beneath his breath incoherently, his eyes downcast, but three letters were distinctly heard among his otherwise unintelligible talk.

Sam grabbed Tuckers arm and pulled it from her neck, pushing him (gently) against the lockers. "Our _what_ come today?" Sam asked aggressively, her eyes wide in shock.

"C.A.T. scores," he yelped, shrinking beneath the fifteen-year-old girl's murderous stare.

Danny's mouth dropped. Why hadn't any of the teachers told him this? _Why? _He was going to walk into his house and an empty envelope would be in his father's hand and his mother and Jazz would be standing behind him. Most likely angry.

"What are you complaining about?" Danny asked bewildered. "You got to study! You got to take it on time! I had to fight my future self and that whole extra week I got was spent with, big surprise, ghost hunting! There is no way I made a decent grade on that."

Sam released Tucker from her grasp and turned to Danny. He had a point. Both her and Tucker had much more time to study. Though she was freaked out beyond all known reason, she was pretty sure she didn't do too badly. Even with her and Tucker's help with him studying that week, there was no denying that he didn't get the full opportunities that he would've had without ghost hunting.

"Look, both of you," she sighed, "don't sweat it. I'm sure both of you won't do as badly as Third Degree Burns did, so don't go all psycho on me worrying about the grades."

Danny and Tucker exchanged a quick look. Then both of them proceeded to scream, all traces of puberty leaving their voices. Sam slapped her forehead with her palm. Grabbing both of them by their wrists, she pulled them towards the doors leaving the school and around to the side. In disgust she threw their hands away and rolled her eyes. "Stop it already!" she snapped, shaking Tucker's already vibrating body.

Danny took a deep breath and calmed down sooner than Tucker did. "I'm okay," he concluded.

"Good," said Sam. "I was beginning to miss your dancing."

This, out of the rest of Sam's begging for him to calm down, caught his attention. "Dancing?"

Danny blushed and rubbed the back of his neck, a reflex he did when he was embarrassed. "Got a little excited about summer," he said, shouting out the last word.

"From the way you're yelling," said a voice from behind him, "I'd have to say so."

All three heads turned to the source of the new voice. There, smirking at the tousle-haired teen was Valerie, gripping her backpack and leaning to one side. Sam's expression immediately hardened.

"Oh, hi Val," Danny replied, relaxing. "Ready for summer?"

Valerie laughed, "Heck yeah. This gives me so much more free time for my… you know, my job."

Sam and Tucker glared and Danny gulped. "Yeah," he said, "free time. Hey, did you know that we're getting our test scores back today?"

The smile on her face immediately fell and shattered on the floor. "The C.A.T.?" She suddenly appeared right in front of Danny, gripping his shoulders. "How do you know? Who told you? Today? Oh, my God, I so failed that!"

Danny jumped back, his personal space feeling invaded, and pointed to Tucker. "Don't know who told him, but he knew!"

She shrieked and moved on to her new prey. "How on earth did you find this out? It was a secret!"

Frightened by being once again held hostage by a crazed female with no attraction to him, he fumbled for his PDA and held it up. "I hacked into the school system," he explained. "They sent them out two days ago."

She yelled again and gripped her hair, repeating "Oh my God" over and over again to the point of annoyance.

Danny put a hand on her shoulder, holding her still, and said loudly, "Valerie, breathe!"

She inhaled deeply, holding it in for a moment before relaxing. "Whoa," she said. "I'm sorry. I spazzed. I didn't have much time to study."

"Neither did I," Danny said. Jeez, was that what he looked like to Sam when he fell into shock?

"Besides," Sam added, stepping in to their conversation, "like I told Danny, I'm sure you didn't do badly. It's not like either of you are untalented idiots or something."

Danny stared at Sam for a moment, his brain becoming fuzzy. Was it just him or did she just give Valerie words of comfort? Valerie seemed thrown off by the gesture as well, but she recovered relatively faster than he did. "Uh, thanks," she said plainly.

An awkward silence stretched around them until a shy cough escaped from Tucker's mouth. "While I'm scared beyond all reason, don't you think we should get home before our parents have even more time to think about our punishment?" The other three nodded eagerly and Valerie took off running around the corner as though she were going to sprint home. Her house was in the other direction.

Turning back to the other two, Danny winked and held out his hands. Tucker and Sam obediently placed their hands in his and felt the familiar feeling of weightlessness overcome them as they became invisible.

"Fly like the wind, Danny," said Sam as they took to the air.

* * *

The white envelope that held his destiny inside was shaking violently in front of Danny's eyes. Were its contents that utterly horrifying that it thrashed about, waiting to be opened and spell his doom out for him?

Oh, wait. Those were his hands.

Danny shook his head and pushed the envelope into Sam's hands. "I can't. You do it. Or burn it, whichever one works."

Sam grabbed Danny's wrist and put it back in his hand. "It's not going to be bad, Danny. If it is, blame me and Tucker for not tutoring you well."

"Hey!" said Tucker indignantly, taking that moment to come out of his shocked trance.

From behind the three they heard an impatient sigh. "Hurry up, Danny. It's not going to get any better the longer you wait, you know."

"Shut up, Jazz," he said. He took a deep breath. "Okay. On the count of three we open them, alright?" The others nodded, Sam biting her lip nervously, Tucker holding back whimpers.

"One…"

"Two…"

Without waiting for the next number, they ripped into the envelopes and pulled out the forms within. Their eyes scanned over the paper until their eyes landed on the red number in the bottom corner.

"Above average?" Danny whispered, scrutinizing the scale next to the grade; eight hundred and twenty-one points versus the 798 average. The highest he could get was a one thousand fifty.

A hand reached from over his shoulder and snatched the paper from his hands. He spun around to see Jazz staring at the number. "Oh my gosh, Danny!" she squealed, throwing her arms around him. "You did it!"

"He did?" Tucker asked, swapping his paper with Danny's. Danny pinpointed Tucker's eight hundred and eighty-four. Craning his neck to see Sam's, he saw her eight hundred and sixty-seven.

Sam looked over to Danny's grade and smiled broadly. After Jazz released the already blushing Danny, she wrapped him in an embrace. "Awesome job! I told you, you could do it."

Danny grinned crookedly. "Not like I didn't have loads of help from you. You got a better grade, anyway. Kudos, Sam."

"Thanks." She let go and looked him square in the eye, completely serious. "You're future's open now, Danny. Wide open. You definitely deserve this break."

"I'll go tell Mom and Dad," chimed Jazz, still grinning in pride. She left the room, leaving the three soon-to-be sophomores alone in Danny's bedroom.

* * *

It was all very nearly complete now.

He had several powerful soldiers at his beckoned call. His powers, combined with the ecto-suit the Fentons (or, more than likely, Madeline) had designed, were advanced beyond measure. All of his chess pieces were in the right formation.

Except one. And that made Vlad Masters very unhappy.

The single pawn he required to defend the rest of the pieces was simply not yet fully available to him. It served his use, yes, but not its full potential. Despite his expectations of the young half-breed, Daniel was evolving at a quicker rate than he ever had.

Not as if Vlad actually considered him a _threat_. He had certainly not reached that level of maturity in his ghost powers yet, but after a year he seemed to have achieved much. Besides, it wasn't at a much faster rate. The child still couldn't pull off a replication. No, the apprehension he felt when considering Daniel was more towards the future… and if he moved in his places, would he stay there? These questions disgruntled him, but the fact remained that all Vlad had to do was take the correct steps at the precise moments, his apprentice would fall into step and remain there willingly.

Fortunately, a precise moment had arrived.

From his sources, otherwise known as the ghost vultures, he had learned that his apprentice-to-be was in a right mental state. How? Why? He had no idea. Something apparently had happened that only Daniel seemed to know the details of. As much as he would like to know exactly what had taken place, it wasn't the main point. He was unstable. It was perfection.

All he had to do now was choose the right way to persuade the pawn.

A green vapor-like substance escaped from the widening crack between the portal doors. Standing in his spectral form, Vlad smiled congenially at the figure stepping, or rather, floating from the hazy world beyond.

"Hello, Cyrus," he said cheerily. "Ready for you orders?"

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_Author's Note: Please, please review. If you liked it, if you disliked it, if I messed something up…inform me through a review. Also, if this is your first time reading my work: go visit Eternal or Cold As Ice. Much appreciated. I'll be writing the next Eternal now!_

_Saramis Kismet_


	2. Blind

**Never Good Enough**

_Author's Note: Thanks for the warm response, guys. For that, I wrote both this chapter and Eternal as fast as I could. However, at a certain part I hit a stump where I couldn't figure out how to flow into the next scene. Also,if you'll go to my profile, please, you'll see in the news section a little dilemma I need your help with. Now, let's get on with it, shall we? A little something from CAI, in fact, is begun here. I'll give credits to anyone who can pinpoint specific things in chapters that are important in the second part. Of course they might be obvious, but hey... Okay, NOW let's get on with it.

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**Blind**

"Sam, this movie hasn't even left the movie theaters yet," Tucker said surprised, staring up at the theatrical screen Sam had in one of the many levels of her basement.

Sam took a large slice of mushroom pizza from the box and settled the greasy thing on her paper plate. She had to admit, it was a strange site to see; rebellious Goth vegetarian munching on some of the unhealthiest food in a mini-theater fit for royalty with a computer nerd and a messy looking phantom. Instead, its purpose was to keep her and a bored pair of boys entertained on one of those rare dull days they had had that summer so far. Onlyone, meesely weekinto the vacation and Tucker was already dying to go back to school, or at least do something riveting like ghost hunting.

Surprisingly, ghost activity was at a relatively low level. There were simple attacks here and there, but nothing that put her friends in any immediate danger.Which was definitely good news for Danny, she thought, as he came up behind her to pick out both a slice of triple meat supreme (of which Sam couldn't help but wince at) and the mushroom she'd gotten for herself, suspecting neither of the boys would care for any.He made his way back to where Tucker was planted in his chair, waiting for Sam to start the movie.

She paused for a moment at the serving table, pretending to decide on which soda she wanted to pour into her cup. The incident with Clockwork and Phantom had taken place nearly a month and a half ago, and for the most part, Danny had recovered from the wounds he'd received. Not the physical ones; seeing as how Clockwork had allowed him to go back in time to before Phantom cheated on the test, those hadn't technically happened anywhere other than inhis memory and, though he was too proud to admit it, his nightmares. She had no solid way of knowing this, being too hesitant to ask bluntly, but the wounds he recieved had to be deeper than flesh.

Oh yes, she remembered what Danny hadsounded like when he replayed the scene for them later that veryday once she and Tucker had finished the exam.

"_Jazz knows?_" Tucker had cried that day in front of the school. Telling his friends that his sister had been in on his secret identity was among first things he had decided to say.

Danny smiled crookedly, a characteristic Sam had taken notice of long ago. "Uh, yeah," he replied. "Ever since the firstfight with Dr. Spectra. From what she told me, she saw me go ghost and you two gave a weak excuse."

Tucker instantly receded his surprised expression. Sam, on the other hand, tried tothink ofan explanation without success. They smiled innocently at their smirking friend.

"So anyway," Sam said, being the first to get back on topic, "you said Clockwork took you back a few hours to when you confessed that you cheated." The question ate at her insides, no matter how wary she wasof speaking it."What happened before time repaired itself?"

A strange look flashed momentarily over Danny's eyes, as though he were looking distantly at something very troubling. He blinked and it was gone, replaced with a solemnly serious face. Sam had noticed it, though. In the brief seconds that he'd let it slip, she saw that whatDanny alonehad seen had terrified him.

"Phantom had been pretending to be mefor a few days," he began. "He cheated on the C.A.T. and Lancer found out. He and my whole family, including you two, were for some reason or another at the Nasty Burger. I don't know how, I was in the future for most of the time. There's a whole other story to go with that," he added. "When I'd gotten there, Jazz had peeled Phantom's disguise awayand revealed him for who he was. I'm guessing that what happened right before I showed up was, he told you all that I was the ghost boy and he was my future self.I came back to the present and fought him. I won… but I almost lost, too." He sighed and sat down on the stairs leading to the doors. "I got the power Phantom used on us. The Ghostly Wail."

"Are you serious?" Tucker interrupted, looking excited. "I thought you weren't supposed to get that for ten years."

"I wasn't," said Danny. "I have no clue how I got it so quick, but itexhausts meof most of my energy. I couldn't go ghost afterwards,and all of you were still bound to the Nasty Sauce container." His voice cracked,his face showing nothing."It exploded before I got there."

Sam gasped and Tucker raised his eyebrows. Was it possible that Danny had actually seen them die? They knew they might in some timeline, but to witness it...

She didn't want to think about it.

"Don't worry," Danny said, smiling to reassure them. "You hadn't died. Clockwork froze time and saved you all. You were just... suspended in the air."

He went on to fill them in on everything that had happened after Sam and Tucker removed their medallions and escaped to the present. He told them everything from his medallion being lodged inside of him, being trapped and beatenin the Ghost Zone, the Boo-merang hitting his head with a ten year old note from Jazz, meeting a completely human and very wornVlad Masters, and, most attention catching, learning just how Phantom became a full ghost.

Tucker had shivered as Danny recollected that tale. "That's just… whoa. Disturbing."

"Disturbing?" Sam asked incredulously. "Tucker,_ I'm_ disturbing. _That _is... it'shorrifying." She turned to Danny and placed her hand on his. He looked down at it quietly. "But you ended up defeating him, Danny," she reminded him. "You beat him, a supposedly more powerful, but twisted version of yourself, as a half ghost. Everything that happened hasn't even really happened. It's all like some nightmare now."

Danny looked up and gave both of them convincing smiles. "I know, Sam. Don't worry, it shook me a little, but I'll be okay."

_Liar._

"Sam, come on, I've been dying to see this movie," said Danny from behind her in the present. She snapped out of her reverie and walked to where the two boys sat, holding up a small black remote with so many buttons it looked like some might be pushed off for room. The room grew dark and Sam sat between Danny and Tucker as the beginning credits and haunting soundtrack began to play.

Of course, she'd already seen this movie, but the other two hadn't. It was a new horror flick, something that would usually captivate her, but instead she was busy pretending to watch and think instead.

If it had been ages since the battles with Phantom, it had been eons since Pariah Dark. That one was two or so months ago. When Danny was about to leave to fight impossible odds, she had been forced to accept a part of herself that she normally didn't enjoy facing. Something she hadn't faced since Ember or Desiree.

For some reason, she had feelings for Danny beyond those of just a truly strong relationship.

After Ember's near takeover of the world, she'd made a point to prove to herself that she, a girl, could be a good friend with Danny, a boy, without it being anything closer. And, as far as she could remember, Danny never showed many signed of returning any feelings while in a same state of mind. He was kind of crazy about her dressed in pink when Desiree made it to where they'd never met, but then again, he didn't remember anything about her.

It frustrated her. She was fifteen and wasn't considering love or relationships too seriously yet, as opposed to most fifteen-year-old minds. Paullina, for example, the annoying prep thatDanny, for some strange reason, was still completely infatuated with. It was superficial, though, which caused her not to feel as much jealousy as she did anger at Danny. Not to mention Valerie…

Somehow Sam had gotten off track in her thinking and moved back to the main point. Danny, whom she knew better than anyone else probably did, even Tucker, was a credible liar sometimes. He'd been walking around, his usual, normal, teenage boyself, for the last few weeks. Never had he tried to confide in either her or Tucker more than he had that day. Thus far, she'd respected that. But he didn't seem to be getting much better.

Danny drained his plastic cup of soda, a few half melted ice cubes left. He dug it out with two fingers and tossed it into the air, lazily pointing a finger at it and disintegrating it with a small ball of ghost energy.

"Show off," muttered Tucker from her other side. She smirked at their immaturity. Neither of them were paying much attention to the movie they'd previously been dying to see, but instead, Tucker began to throw Skittles into the air as Danny practiced his already nearly perfect aim. Sam sighed, but she threw a mushroom up as well for Danny to have his fun with. That was the whole point, though, wasn't it? They all knew these moments of being regular teenagers were short-lived, and that at any moment they could be broken.

After all, Danny was a super-hero.

"No way," Tucker said, stopping the game and staring at the darkening screen. The familiar white words began to scroll up it. "The movie's over?"

"Well, you two geniuses were too busy goofing off to enjoy the complete awesomeness of it," Sam explained calmly, getting up to throw away her paper plate.

"Oh, come on, Sam," whined Danny, standing up after her. "Can we play it again?"

Sam rolled her eyes playfully. "I had to sit through it twice now. It's your own fault you weren't paying attention."

From behind Danny Tucker smirked. "He just wants an excuse to stare at you without you paying attention, you know." His feet were promptly pelted with bright green spheres. Jumping up, he cried, "What? It's true!"

Danny shook his head and chuckled a little. After Pariah Dark, it seemed as if Tucker was even more incessent on Danny about his maybe-or-maybe-not feelings about Sam. Sam was pretty certain it was because he'd rather have Danny with her and not Valerie, now that it was open to them that she liked him. They weren't stupid enough to tell Danny, but somehow, he knew. Seeing as how he still had that thing for Paullina...

You know, she was just going to stop thinking about it.

"Sorry," Danny said to Sam once he finished torturing Tucker. "I still don't get it. I mean, if we liked each other, we'd be dating by this point wouldn't we?"

Sam smiled and nodded. "If we liked each other, that's usually what happens." Keywords: each other.

"So, are we going to watch _any _movies? It's not even ten yet." Danny cleared his throat and stood straight as though giving a speech. "Summer Rules 101 states that fun must not end until approximately 2:28 A.M."

Sam mosied over to the rack of films sitting on the shelf. She had her own personal shelf so that it wouldn't get confused with her mother's romantic comedies and her father's documentaries. She pulled one out and flashed it in front of the two. "Underworld good for anyone?"

"That's the one with Selene, right?" asked Tucker, pulling out a packet of beef jerkey from his pocket. "She is _hot_."

"I'll take that as a yes," Sam said dryly, rolling her eyes. She made her way to the projector before she heard Danny moan angrilybehind her. Turning to face him, he had a pained look on his face as he stared at the light blue mist escaping from his mouth as he exhaled.

* * *

They had searched for nearly ten minutes in Sam's entire neighborhood, but he couldn't find the source of any ghost activity. He even looked in the alleys and trash bins to see if it was just a harmless, wandering soul, but there was no sign of anything. His ghost sense hadn't even activated again once they had left Sam's basement. 

It was more than just a little frustrating. Not only was his night with his friends being interrupted, but so far it was for _no important reason_.

"Maybe it was just a good ghost," offered Tucker, trying to be helpful. "Nothing seems to be wrong, so we can just go back to Sam's house and watch the movie now, right?"

"Don't use your idol worship of an actress as an excuse, Tuck," Sam said, holding back a smirk. Danny couldn't stop her usual style of humor from uplifting his surly mood. Despite his curiosity, there was clearly no havoc being wrought and no supernatural disasters taking place on thesparsely occupied street.

Nodding, he turned back in the direction of Sam's cleverly compact mansion, making sure he had a tight grip on their arms. He began to go intangible --

"Don't. Even. Move."

Danny froze in midair, holding his breath. He recognized the voice. He hadn't heard it very recently, but it had heard it enough to know that he probably should heed its commands. At least, with his friends in his arms. Valerie was, of course, a worthy opponent.

"Put the humans down," said the female behind him. "Don't you dare hurt them."

"Okay," he said calmy. He sank down to the ground, exchanging meaningful looks with Sam and Tucker. This was the first time Valerie had ever seen him as Danny Phantom with both of them. He could only pray that the clever hunter wouldn't be able to put two and two together very quickly.

"Act scared," he hissed under his breath as he released their arms. They ran away, false looks of fright on their faces, backing away to the sidewalk. They remained there, unnoticed by Valerie, watching carefully in case Danny got into too much trouble.

He was finally able to face Valerie; at least, as well as he could with her mask on. He could practically feel the glare he knew she was giving him.

"What were you doing with them, huh?" she interrogated, one of her very, very large canons erected on her shoulder. "Answer me now."

Resisting the urge to ask why she had suddenly decided to talk before shooting, he answered, "The humanswere helping me look for something." It was, techincally, the truth, but he had to make sure it was vague enough.

"Oh yeah? What were you going to do to them once you found it?"

"Let them go back to their homes," he answered, again, honestly. "I take it you didn't buy that I might actually be an okay ghost after we got sucked into the Ghost Zone, or after we were hunted by Skulker, or--"

"Don't talk back to me," she growled, her weapon charging up with the familiar sounds. Completely ignoring most of his comments, she nodded at the gun. "New weapons. You like? I must say, they pack a big punch, but I haven't fully tested this babyout yet."

Danny smiled. "I have something new up my sleeve, too," he said. He by no means meant to use it out here, with buildings and sleeping people inside. It was just nice to be able to feel intimidating, too. Because that gun was veryintimidating. "Well, I don't have sleeves, but you get the general idea."

"_Wait_!"

In one moment, a lot of things happened. First, Valerie pressed against her trigger. Second, Tucker and Sam had yelled in warning. Danny thought it was to the ghost hunter's assault, but he had also created a shining sheild to absorb most of the impact. Then, a loud beeping sound came from a device on Valerie's wristimmediately after Danny suddenly felt a cold chill encase the area.

In the next moment, Sam and Tucker were standing in the middle of the street, Valerie's weapon had hit his sheild and it crumbled, throwing Danny backward to the ground, and Valerie had turned to face a figure behind her.

Lifting himself on his elbows, blue air leaking from his slack jaw, he saw what his friends had truly been warning him of.

He was tall, and clothed in long robes that suggested a time period of a few hundred years in the past. His body beneath the folds of clothing was lean though muscular. He was bald and his face appeared very childlike, save for the air of knowledge that surrounded him.

Lifting his head up, Danny saw the bluish veins in his temples that were so large they pushed against his pale green skin. He flashed a smile at the three complete humans in front of him, particular the one with the large canon aimed for his chest.

"Human young lady," he said with a strange dignity, "I advise you to put down your little gun before I must take it from you."

Valerie didn't listen to his warning. Danny hadn't expected anything less from her, and as he rose to the air to face the ghost as well, she fired.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Yawn My, my, look at the time. Nearly eleven. And I have a whole chapter to summarize by the end of tomorrow. I really should prioritize better. Then again, how many of you even honestly want me to have good grades if it means waiting two weeks for chapters? I've written four in the last week and a half, huzzah! Speaking of which, check out Eternal, my friends. It's about a very different romance, or at least, the beginning of it._

_See you in the afterlife,_

_Saramis_


	3. Control

**Never Good Enough**

_Author's Note: Here we go… I'll try to write an Eternal chapter this weekend, too, but only if I can manage. If I don't, Manda's going to be ticked with me. Anyway, sorry to break it to you but there's very little romance in this one. Sure, the few muses and gestures, but nothing pivotal. If you want to see that spur up, I suggest reading Cold As Ice if you haven't yet.

* * *

_

**Control**

"_Wait!_"

Tucker stared from his place on the sidelines as the tension between Valerie and Danny was relieved, but only in favor of a new threat. From behind the red clad huntress, the figure of a ghost had appeared. As soon as he laid eyes upon him, his insides grew cold and his mind became numb. He was having difficulty thinking properly, but he and Sam managed to exclaim a warning to their otherwise busy friend.

Even while he said this, he felt his feet moving him forward. Not to assist Danny, butby some strange command of their own.Sam stood beside him, but she seemed to be more focused on the outside world than he. He just couldn't stop staring at the newcomer.

It didn't matter, though, because as soon as Valerie's weapon fired, whatever had gripped his undying attention faded. It seemed like he suddenly realized that a battle was about to take place. "Who is that?" he asked Danny.

The ghost easily deflected the powerful blast from her canon just by moving his hands. No visible shield as far as Tucker could see. It shot through the air into the top of a building. All of Valerie's attention was now on him.

"I don't have the slightest clue," answered Danny. "Wherever he came from, he's definitely a higher priority than Val right now."

He tried his best not to notice the use of the nickname right after she hadtried to disintegrate him.

Again, Valerie aimed another shot at him. She had to know that if he'd dodged the first one so easily, the second would make just as much damage, but she was crazy after all. The bald ghost redirected the ectoplasm's path and it collided violently with another building. It was obvious that this was going to get messy quickly.

Danny flew up next to Valerie, his fists glowing dangerously. She turned to him, clearly annoyed. "I've got this!" she yelled angrily. As the words left her mouth, a thin blue ecto-ray made contact with her hover board and she flew backward, almost loosing grip of her weapons.

"Yeah. Totally under control."

The ghost in front of him chuckled warmly. The action surprised Danny, as well as Tucker and Sam below. His features, though as disturbing as most ghosts, seemed wise and congenial. His words, on the other hand, had the same chilling effect his stare had. "So, instead of a human opponent with nifty little guns," he said smugly, "I get the middle of the spectrum. Oh well, I suppose one can only take what they can."

With that, Danny's eyes filled with the blue light making its way straight for him.

"Look out!" cried Tucker, but Danny hadn't the time to duck. He absorbed the ray in his chest, falling a few meters closer to the ground. Just has he slipped from the fight, an unexpected ally reentered the scene.

Valerie once again aimed at the ghost, this time with a new, smaller weapon. A bright red substance flew from the barrel and landed directly on the ghost's face. He cried out in rage and clawed at it, but it stuck tightly to his face.

"What is she doing?" Tucker asked Sam.

"Like I said, she's not an idiot," she answered. "She knows when to fight with Danny and when to fight against him. Well, she shouldn't fight against him anyway, but that's not the point."

Whoever the specter was, his hands fell back to his sides rather calmly. Danny took the moment of defenselessness to fly forward, arms outstretched, but as he neared his face blue beams flew from his eyes, red slime spattering everything nearby. Including Danny.

He reeled, trying to peel some of the adhesive from his suit to no avail. He went intangible but it simply became intangible as well. "What the heck is this stuff?" he yelled at Valerie.

"Highly condensed ectoplasm," Valerie replied. She aimed once again at the ghost. "Blast it off and get back in this fight, Phantom. You'll have enough of that stuff on you later, anyway."

"Yeah, I figured that much," he answered dryly. Nonetheless, both Danny and Valerie began to fly toward the now invulnerable enemy.

Valerie shot again, this time a set of ropes sparkling with electricity erupted from the gun. "I don't know who you are, or how you keep dodging my shots," she said, "but this one will shock you!"

Tucker sighed, slapping his face with the palm of his hand. "I thought Danny was the one who came up with the bad one-liners."

He then felt a sharp pain in the back of his head after Sam slapped him. "Focus, Tuck," she snapped. "Do you have the thermos in your backpack? It doesn't look like this is going so well."

It wasn't. Much as he had changed the course of the other rounds, the high voltage ropes simply flew toward the left. They headed straight for Danny, who went intangible at the last moment before they bound him.

The ghost smiled politely, appearing abashed at his own behavior. "Well, where are my manners?" he said to Valerie. "My name is Cyrus. And seeing as how my main objective does not concern you, young huntress, please don't hold a grudge at me when I do this."

He held up a flaming blue hand, and a large mass of energy appeared, flying straight for Valerie. She had no time to react; the force made contact with her, encasing her completely. At first she just stood there, frozen in time, as it seemed. Then she fell from her hover board to the street below. She landed in a crumpled heap, her mask removed to show her eyes closed peacefully. Her board remained floating in the sky.

Eyes wide, Tucker ran instinctively toward the fallen girl, Sam tailing behind him.

"Valerie!" Danny cried from above, momentarily distracted. In that time, Cyrus nailed him in the back. He yelped, though somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought it should have hurt more than it had. It still hurt, though.A lot.

This ghost was definitely powerful. Whatever it was he had done to Valerie was something he hadn't ever seen before. It was unsettling. For a brief moment, Danny wished that he were able to duplicate himself as much as his future self had.

When he turned to face him, Cyrus smirked. His superiority over Danny was obvious in the words he spoke. "A shame; she was actually almost a formidable opponent for a human girl. Not by her own accord, of course," he added thoughtfully.

Danny glared, his green eyes flashing dangerously. He flew above and in front of the ghost, looking down threateningly. "What _is_ your objective, then? "

"My objective? Well, that's definitely your business, isn't it?" he sneered."Do you truly believe I would tell you?" Cyrus shook his head amusedly. "Child, the key to victory is keeping the enemy guessing, or in the dark if you will. You would know that, of course, if you had any form of training." He lifted his hand again soon Danny was hit by another tirade of ectoplasmic rays.

"In the dark?" Danny asked after dodging the attacks, "Well, if you insist." He pointed to a streetlamp hanging above Cyrus and shot the light bulb, showering him with sparks and glass. It didn't do much, except darken the street a bit and sidetrack him.

Below the scene, Sam and Tucker were trying to multitask by pulling Valerie to the sidewalk, making sure Danny wasn't getting hurt, and dodging beams that had missed their targets all at once. "Do you think she'll be okay?" Sam asked, putting a finger over her wrist to check her pulse. "What do you think he did to her?"

"Not a clue," Tucker answered. Valerie had fallen at least fifteen feet, so he checked for broken bones. The girl was being beaten to a pulp lately. "It looks like she just passed out, though. She'll be okay for now I think." He lifted her red mask from the ground beside them and slipped it over her head again. "I think she knows that I know, but I'm not sure. It's better if she thinks you and Danny don't suspect her."

Sam let go of her arm, satisfied that she was all right. Standing up, she grabbed Tucker's backpack while it was still around his shoulders and opened it, despite his yelps. After fishing past the assorted tech she couldn't identify, she pulled the Fenton Thermos by the strap of out of the bag.

"Stay there," she warned, running back into the midst of the fight. Tucker cocked his head in disbelief after her. What the heck did she think she was doing? He groaned, but didn't move from his spot to watch her.

Underneath the battle wasn't any safer than a few feet from it. She looked up and saw the bright flashing lights of rays, shields, and brief moments where she couldn't see either ghost. Finally, both of them were visible. However, they were so high… from where the two were on the ground, it looked as though Cyrus was talking to Danny in between shots. His lips moved, but the distance and the crashes drowned the sounds out. Tucker had to wonder how no one had rushed outside or called the police yet.

"Danny!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, pulling the lid from the thermos. "Move. I need a clear shot!"

Danny looked down at the smear of black below them. Cyrus followed his gaze and saw her holding the thermos threateningly over her head. "Oh, yes," he said softly, as though he was being reminded of something pleasant. "Of course." He looked knowingly back at Danny before diving to the street below.

"Get away from them!" he shouted through clenched teeth. He followed the ghost's path, but stopped in surprise at what was happening.

Cyrus simply stood in front of her, looking at her with a determinedly blank face. Sam froze, her glare softening into one of tranquility. Slowly but surely, her arms lowered down to her waist, her grip on the thermos weakening, and she released it to the ground. She continued staring into the ghost's blue eyes, her violet ones glazing over with a dreamy look.

Tucker stood from his spot on the sidewalk, gazing in concern at her. "S-Sam?" he asked hesitantly. What was happening to her?

"What are you doing?" Danny asked from behind the ghost. He didn't answer. Danny's fists began to glow neon. "What," he repeated aggressively, "are you doing to her?"

Before Danny could raise the arm to strike, a shattering scream of terror and helplessness escaped from Sam's mouth. Her eyes were wide and she stared at Cyrus in the deepest apprehension. She tripped backwards, breathing heavily and gripping her hair, her eyes squeezed shut.

"Sam!" both boys exclaimed. Tucker rushed over to her, kneeling down and rubbing her shoulders as her breathing hastened. She was truly shaken up, not looking up or uttering a sound other than her heavy gasps.

Danny forcefully ripped his eyes from her distress and targeted Cyrus instead. "You!" he yelled. He flew straight for him, grabbing him by the collar of his dark robes and pinning him to a building. "What did you to do her? Whathappened to her and Valerie?"

Cyrus grinned wickedly. "Learn for yourself, why don't you?" he hissed. He kicked Danny away and with a long sweep of his robes and an earsplitting crack, he disappeared into nothing.

He hovered there for a moment, staring at the empty space of air Cyrus had left behind. The words he had spoken during their battle before Sam's interruption kept running through his mind, no matter how much he wanted to push them all away. In just one short fight, he had easily rendered one of the toughest girls he knew unconscious, added to his list of worries for the summer, and totally terrified the one person he knew who never –

Why wasn't he down there helping her?

He suddenly became much more alert, looking behind him as Tucker gently helped Sam back up to her feet. He dove back to where they were and grabbed her wrist to pull her to him. Taking her chin and lifting it up for a better view of her face, he whispered, "What happened to you?"

Sam bit her lip and clasped her other hand over the one he was holding her arm up with. Closing her eyes she tried to relive the last few moments, tried to find the correct words to describe it. She lowered her face again and felt Tucker rub her back encouragingly.

"I don't really know," she finally said. "There was some kind of… of a presence or something inside my mind. No, not just my head. Everywhere. It was like something was…." She paused to find the right words. "Something was pulling at everything in me, like my heart was about to be ripped from my chest, only worse. And there were whispers. That's all I could hear was whispers from somewhere."

Danny looked stricken by her words as she took a deep breath to stop her shaking. "It's not that bad, Danny, really," she finished. She smiled reassuringly up to him. "Anyway, I'm fine now. Whatever he was doing, I stopped him."

"What _was_ he doing?" Tucker asked thoughtfully. He leaned over to pick up the thermos.

Danny let go of her wrist and pulled her hair behind her ear. "I don't know," he said, turning to Tucker. "He didn't say. He sure did pull off a few big magic tricks, though." He scanned the area with his eyes, taking in the damage. The streetlight was blown, a few bricks and plaster were hanging from the walls of buildings; at least they weren't in a highly residential area. The hover board Valerie had been riding had finally fallen back to the road. His gaze finally landed on the girl on the sidewalk. "Is she doing okay?"

Tucker nodded. "She's fine. I think her wrist may be sprained, though. I can't tell if she has any cuts or bruises, though, seeing as how her outfits covering every inch of her."

"Be glad he didn't take any opportunities," Sam muttered from behind them. Tucker glared at the comment, but both boys were silently thankful that she was making snide jokes.

They walked back to her, Danny and Tucker lifting her up. "Did either of you try waking her up?"

"We didn't have much time to try, what with Sam going all-out Xena like she did, tryingto save your arse," Tucker replied, getting his revenge. Sam gave a weak scowl and the two boys wrapped Valerie's arms around them. Sam grabbed Danny's arm as he went intangible flying all four of them back in the sky.

* * *

After dropping Valerie off in her room, going back for the hover board that they'd forgotten to bring with them, and discreetly waking Mr. Grey while they were invisible and alerting him to check on Valerie, it was creeping up on one o' clock in the morning. Danny dropped Tucker off at his house, where he waited long enough to see him open his bedroom door to two very sleepy and disgruntled parents. He would have to find a way to explain how he had been in his bedroom all night after coming home from Sam's, and that neither of them must have noticed. 

When he finally returned Sam to her bedroom, he yawned loudly. "I'm wiped," he said, letting his form slip from ghost to human. He scratched his head and tried to cover up another yawn. "That new ghost can definitely pack a punch."

"Are you hurt?" asked Sam, absentmindedly kicking a few metal magazines under her bed to clear up some of the random clutter.

"I should be asking you that." He sat down on the bed and Sam took a spot next to him. "You're not totally fine, Sam. And I don't think I should leave you alone tonight after what happened."

"What?" Sam leaned back and lifted a brow nervously. "Danny, I'm fine, you don't have to stay. You'll be in deep with your parents. You know how you're dad is."

Danny wasn't able to listen properly. He could already feel himself ready to fall asleep. "Yeah, I do. I'll call Jazz. After I calm her down for waking her up at the ungodly hour -- jeez, you'd think even for her, summer would mean sleeping in – I'll convince her to make an excuse. Besides, if I fall asleep while flying and run into a wall, I'll blame it on you."

Sam shook her head, but caved in. "You are so overprotective, Danny," she muttered, standing up and walking to her closet. She pulled out a small, navy blue cot and opened it, throwing a blanket and one of her pillows on it."You don't ever tell us what's going on in your head, but you always want to know if we're okay."

"What are you talking about?" he asked drowsily. Hewalked over to the cot and fell onto it, not bothering to cover himself.

"Nothing." Sam sighed and flipped off the light. "I'll call Jazz. You get some rest."

The sound of Danny's even breaths were her only reply.

* * *

_Author's Note: This was a total bytch to write at first, but after a while I mangaed. By the way, guys, this is a little late because of Let the Games Begin. Whee. I was stupid for a moment, but inspiration hit me! Anyway, check it out and stay tuned for Eternal._

_See you in the afterlife,_

_Saramis_


	4. Validation

**Never Good Enough **

_Ugh. Just… go to the news in my profile to know what happened with this. Sigh. 'T was crazy indeed. Truly crazy. My apologies._

_Thanks to my fantastic reviewers: Dreamer for lyf, Bluejolteon, IwuvMyKenshyPoo, Snapcat, DigitalDreamer, proud shipper, DeadlyNightshade, Random-idiot-v2, Frimmy, the sleep warrior, An-chan, xheartkreuzx, Blue Smoke, PrettyArbitrary, and the Great Susinko. Big thanks to Fey Phantom who read and reviewed all my chapters in a 36-hour time span. Wowzers. _

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* * *

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**Validation**

Somehow it had actually been relativelyeasy to feign surprise when the three saw Valerie's injury. It ended up being just a wrist sprain, and she wore a makeshift sling around her arm. Despite how casually she talked about it, her movements were obviously gentle to not cause herself pain. It also seemed that the only person she allowed to get off with fretting over her without a punishment greater than an eye-roll was Danny.

Earlier that morning, Danny had awoken to find himself fully dressed with a furious Mr. Manson over his head, screaming bloody murder at him. Something about his father calling, demanding that he come home that instant. It took him a few moments to remember that he'd fallen asleep at his female friend's house, in her bedroom no less. The yelling had woken Sam up and the two had a huge argument, which ended in her father threatening another restraining order if he wasn't out of the house in three minutes. Sam ran into her closet and threw on an outfit faster than Danny ever expected a female to get dressed and they flew out the door to avoid any more threats on his life.

The first thing Danny thought he should do was to use Sam's cell phone to call his own parents. Best. Idea. Ever. He got relatively the same verbal licking from Jack, only he was relieved to find that he was trusted at least a little. He really didn't understand why everyone thought he'd be all over Sam. That was just… wrong.

As the two walked down the street, laughing about the conclusions adults always jumped to when it came to teenagers, they passed Tucker's house. He came out, smiling proudly to himself, and informed them that he wasn't in the least bit of trouble. Somehow he'd convinced his parents that they had gone temporarily insane and didn't even notice their own son sitting at his desk, chatting online all night. They were searching the yellow pages for psychologists as they spoke.

It was still relatively early in the day, and neither Sam nor Danny had eaten any breakfast. They made their way to the cheapest and closest place for food, which happened to be the Nasty Burger. Correction: the Nasty Burger 2, since the first one had up and exploded. No one had been in close proximity in this timeline. The new name pretty much cleared up any doubt whether it was a fast food chain or not.

That was when they saw Valerie hanging outside of the restaurant, looking both relieved and tired. He wanted an excuse to check on her after last night's ordeal and had found it surprisingly easy to drag the others behind him.

With one hand Valerie held a cheeseburger inches from her mouth, the other still preoccupied with being looked at by Danny. "Chill already, Fenton," she said. "I'm fine. It's just a bump."

"You're sure it doesn't hurt to bad?" he asked, lifting it up higher to inspect it better. "I mean, you did fall over ten feet. Down the stairs," he added hastily to go along with Valerie's excuses.

"Just believe her already, will you?" Tucker exclaimed, shrinking away from the familiar look of contempt from Sam as he swallowed another bite of helpless cow. "She's lucky she wasn't hurt badly, but that's just it Danny. She wasn't hurt _that_ badly."

"That's what I get for helping my dad lug equipment downstairs," she said with an innocent smile. It was almost eerie to Danny.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Danny asked, finally releasing her arm.

She shrugged. "Quit my job. Thought I should celebrate."

"Ah," he said, nodding in secret understanding. Valerie definitely knew how to lie through her teeth well. That was the reason he was still trying to decide whether he should be more afraid of her or not.

"So," Valerie said, suddenly much more cheerful, "I think we know enough about what happened to me last night. What did you do, Sam?"

Sam, who had been silent most of the morning, looked up from the table without moving her head. "Nothing quite as exciting as bodily injuries," she said sardonically. A brief yet meaningful glance was shared between her and the boys. They all knew what she was getting at, and they couldn't say they'd been caught off guard.

"I guess not," she mumbled in reply. "But didn't you and Tucker do anything yesterday?"

"Well, now that you mention it-" Sam said quickly, sudden very interested in the conversation. Tucker shut his slightly open mouth and glared sideways at her for interrupting. "Tucker was at my house last night. We watched movies and stuff, and then went for a walk. You wouldn't believe what we saw, too."

Valerie's eyes seemed to light up with enthusiasm. Danny flinched, knowing what was coming. He willed her not to spill as Sam took the reigns of the tale and did something crazy with it he'd never have been able to do with a straight face.

"What happened?"

"We saw that one ghost kid. You know, that Phantom ghost with the white hair." Sam took a French fry from Danny's tray, as he was still momentarily paralyzed and put it in her mouth casually. "Then someone in this outrageous red jumpsuit showed up, with this huge cannon aimed at us. I think she was insane… she was a girl, right?"

"Uh… yeah, I think so," said Tucker, eyeing Valerie's narrowed eyes of pent up violence warily. Was that a gleam of triumph in Sam's eyes?

"Anyway, then this other bald ghost guy shows up," continued Sam. "But neither of us got to see what happened because that's when we ran back home." She turned to Danny and smiled falsely. He could almost see the pain in her eyes. "Sorry we didn't tell you sooner, but these days ghosts are just all over the place."

Valerie perked up and turned to the boy next to her. "You weren't with them, were you?" she said almost to herself.

Feeling like a deer trapped in headlights, Danny turned to Sam, the newly appointed expert, and silently begged for help. She shrugged and sipped her soda, giving Tucker a look of death and suffering as he took yet another bite of his double meaty burger.

"I was… I was at my house!" Danny answered, stumbling through. "I couldn't go because my dad made me stay home to clean the lab, wash beakers, you know, all that jazz. It is my only real chore and I always forget to do it, so, yeah, my dad made me stay home and do it." He grabbed his soda and began drinking to prevent himself from rambling any more.

"Okay," she said slowly, turning back to her own plate. Danny sighed and tried to ignore the eye roll that Sam was sending him. Like it was his fault that Sam had a lot of prior experience of making excuses. All right, to be fair, so had he, but he just didn't of the lying ability as much as she did. Maybe it was a girl thing.

Silence prolonged at their table as the only other party in the restaurant filed out. It wasn't quite lunchtime, and as it turned out, Nasty Burger didn't have much in the way of a breakfast menu. They were now left alone in the newer, cleaner site that a month previously had still been a destruction zone. Danny squirmed slightly in his seat and moved his sight back to his meal.

"So what do you think about the phantom?" Valerie said suddenly. "More and more people are deciding that he's not such a bad ghost… what's your take, Danny?"

Great. On the spot again. Was there something in the physiology of girls that kept them on his back twenty four-seven?

"My parent's don't really know either way. They don't much care, as long as it's a ghost." He avoided eye contact with either of his friends. "Me, I guess he's okay. I mean he hasn't really caused much damage since that whole city hall thing, huh?"

"Yeah," Tucker added, "he can't be all bad."

How was it possible to have this long of a conversation made up entirely of lies?

"But he's still a ghost!" Valerie threw the remains of her lunch on the table and looked at Danny disbelievingly. "Your parents have fought it, haven't they? Don't you think that maybe that should mean something? He's stolen from banks, kidnapped the mayor, and all sorts of other stuff! How in the heck does saving the town form one ghost attack clear that all up? The whole town is nuts for thinking that it's, I mean, I did way more... uh..." She looked around at the others. Even the person at the cash register was staring. "Whatever."

So now Danny was an "it", huh? He could forgive Valerie to certain points, but her use of the word it was unsettling to him. Sure he knew Valerie loathed his ghost form. With a passion, in fact. It was kind of hard to miss after having been fired at during roughly seventeen battles with her. But as humans they were supposed to be relatively good pals, weren't they? Well, they were. In her eyes they were, anyway. She didn't even know she had insulted Danny.

Sometimes it was hard distinguishing his normal half from the abnormal one. His brain hurt.

"Maybe you should lay off the caffeine, Valerie," Sam said, breaking the tense silence. She drummed her fingers on the table. "Or the meat. Both make you antsy, so whichever works."

"Meat does not make you antsy!" Tucker counted, pointing an accusing finger at her. "It makes you alert and energized, but not antsy!"

"Forget it, Tucker," she argued, rolling her eyes. "I don't feel like arguing now. Move." She nudged him over until he nearly fell from the booth, then pushed her way past him. Wrapping a hand around Danny's wrist, she pulled up and said, "Can we talk please? We'll be back in a second," she added to the remaining two, before wrenching a wide-eyed Danny by the arm out of his seat.

He yelped as she tugged on his arm, dragging him along to the hallway leading to the kitchen and the restrooms. "Sam, what are you… Sam, ow, that hurts!" Her grip had tightened around his wrist to keep him from squirming as much as he was. At his exclamation she let go and stopped, pushing him gently against a wall. "_What_?" he asked impatiently.

"Are you okay?" she questioned, crossing her arms and looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

Danny almost couldn't believe the question. "You tried to tear my arm off to ask me if I'm okay?" he cried. "Yes, I'm okay, Sam, can we go back and-" He tried to walk off but Sam put a hand against his shoulder and stopped him. "What?" he snapped. After a moment, he relaxed and noticed the harshness in his voice. "What is it?"

"I'm asking you that." An employee walked out of the kitchen, gave them an odd look, and then went by. Sam lowered her voice to a whisper. He had to struggle to listen. "I've been patient with you for way too long. I figured I'd leave you be, give you your space, until you decided to speak up. You haven't and now I have to say something for you because you're being such a guy." She took a step forward, her eyes boring into his confused ones. "What happened with Clockwork… something happened that you're not telling me or Tucker. You know that you can trust us, right? Something bothered you about that, why won't you tell us?"

Oh, man. This was so not his morning. He shut his eyes and swallowed forcefully. Had he expected her to bring this up now? No, he didn't, not in the least. Plus, they were about five feet from the spot where Sam and everyone else he ever cared about died. At least, in his memory they had. He wasn't exactly feeling up to talking right now.

Or had she done that on purpose?

_Girls_.

He rested against the wall and scratched the back of his head, looking down thoughtfully. How to word it? Predicting that Sam wasn't going to let him out of his corner until he answered, he was just going to have to say what had been plaguing him in the back of his mind since he first saw his future in Clockwork's keep.

"Fine" he sighed. "It's just… okay, look, basically, the future me was awesome. Wasn't he?"

"Excuse me?" Sam said, leaning back in surprise. That hadn't been the confidence she'd expected to hear come out of his mouth. "How can you say that?"

"He was a jerk," they said simultaneously. Danny rolled his eyes, which earned a characteristic mental dagger from Sam.

"Not 'awesome' in a good way," he added hastily, seeing her reaction. "I meant that his powers were awesome. Did you see all the stuff he could do? Did you?"

Sam cocked her head to the side and looked at him with disbelief. "Didn't you get the wail, anyway? You said you've got the ghostly wail."

"That's not all he could do, though," Danny said. He felt himself getting excited just thinking about it all. "That guy… me… whatever, he could rip holes into the freaking Ghost Zone. You know, like Wulf can, remember? Do you know how easy fighting ghosts would be if I could do that? We wouldn't need the thermos anymore, I could just chunk them in and seal it closed! Can you imagine what I'd be like with those powers?"

She nibbled her lip and sighed. "Yes. I can. And I don't like it one bit, you know that I don't."

"I wouldn't be evil," he argued loudly. He caught himself and lowered his voice. "Just because all the other strong ghosts we see are evil doesn't mean I'd be."

Sam shook her head and waved her hands to stop him. "Shut up, Danny. You can't honestly be jealous of yourself, can you?"

"Pretty much, yeah," he admitted, smiling awkwardly. It fell when he realized exactly what this all would sound like to Sam. She didn't get it. He knew she wouldn't. "I know it sounds weird-"

"It sounds sick." Her nose crinkled and she looked disgusted. "You have the wail. That was his most powerful force. Why are you bugging out about his other powers now?"

Danny clenched his teeth and looked at Sam, pained by her distaste with him. "I… I don't know," he said weakly. Yet another lie piled on top of the rest, but what choice did he have? How was he going to explain it without witnessing her going completely nuclear?

She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Great reason," she mumbled. "That's ten years into the future though. You can't expect to be that strong so quickly. I figured you'd know that what with all the practicing we've done."

All the practicing just made it harder on him, he thought. He didn't feel like discussing it anymore. The whispers from last night were beginning to flash through his mind…

_Little human boy, can you hope, with so little power and training, to defeat a ghost as old as I?_

"Let's get back to Tuck and Val," Danny said with finality. He'd already started the day badly; he didn't plan on worsening bonds between he and her.

Nodding in agreement, Sam trailed behind him as he left his post on the wall and moved back into the main room. Faintly he heard her mumble, but it was indistinctive. He wanted no less to ask what she'd said than to worry her or Tucker with what was truly running through his mind.

What if…?

As they neared, Tucker looked up and smirked. "It's been a while since you left, huh?"

"Shut up," they growled, taking seats opposite one another and staring at the table.

Valerie glanced nervously at Tucker. He simply shrugged and nodded his head as if to tell her, 'we'll probably never know.'

* * *

Valerie had left the Nasty Burger shortly after that. She'd gone there only to quit her job and to leave, but Fenton, being as Fenton-y as possible, took ten minutes to decide her arm wasn't a mortal wound. He was one crazy kid. 

She liked that.

A little piece of her was itching to put on her suit and go out to find that weird bald ghost and give him a taste of his own medicine. However reckless she was, though, she wasn't stupid. Her weapons had little to no effect on him, so she needed better ones. She wasn't going to walk up to Fenton Works and ask if Danny could come out and play, and, oh, could she maybe have a few high charged Fenton bazookas and portable ghost portals?

Only one person could get her the firepower she needed without her father seeing, and that was Mr. Masters.

Sitting on her bed, she flipped open the laptop her supplier had given her. It wasn't like she could afford something this sleek with her minimum wage salary, and not like she even had that anymore. She wasn't going to keep working longer than she had to at a place that exploded.

She opened Mozilla Firefox and opened her email. Quickly she wrote out a notification of ghost activity and request for ammo, described the ghost, what powers she'd witnessed, and what she'd need to be able to overcome those powers. Next she detailed what she could remember of how she'd been injured. It had felt like someone had a tight grip around her brain and squeezed until she couldn't think, then the next thing she knew she was in her bedroom with her father hanging over her.

She had a vague idea as to how she'd gotten back home, and she wasn't entirely comfortable with it.

The email was sent now, and she was free to wait what she predicted would be five minutes until her materials arrived outside of her apartment door. For a moment her mind mulled over how they always got there so quickly. She'd always figured Masters just had a lot of helpful, though creepy, resources. She'd have to ask one day.

After a few minutes of lying back on her bed, taking the rare alone time warmly, she pushed herself off and went into the hallway. Sure enough there was the usual box with her name on it. Also, ironically predictable at this point, he father was standing behind it with a stern look.

"Heh," she laughed, smiled brightly. "From a secret admirer?"

"I'll be looking at these before you do anything," he said, bending over and picking the box up. After he left into the other room, Valerie groaned and hit the wall angrily. With her sprained arm.

"Ouch!" she yelped, pulling her arm into her chest and holding tightly. Bad idea, Val, she scorned herself. Bad idea.

* * *

Stupid, stupid Danny, Sam thought angrily, kicking at a random pebble with her black boots. Cars whizzed by on her left, buildings ran on her right, and people pushed by on both sides. She was walking back home, alone this time, since she'd decided to leave on her own. She'd left shortly after Valerie had. 

For some reason her conversation with Danny had bothered her more than it should have. It wasn't her fault, though, he was going all emo over something as stupid as jealousy.

Here she was, thinking that maybe it had something to do with seeing her die.

Well, maybe that wasn't very fair. She wasn't the only one he'd witnessed dying when he couldn't do anything. Also, it wasn't like she was really dead anyway. Yet still she was disappointed in his reason for being all depressed and reserved lately. It was stupid and didn't make any sense at all.

Then there was the fact that a strange feeling told her Danny wasn't being entirely honest with her, either.

Her head hurt from being so angry. She hadn't had a real fight with Danny since Desiree had last appeared. It was a lot louder and crueler then, but she was just as frustrated. He was being an idiot and somehow she felt rejected.

She'd have to get over it, though. Cyrus was still on the loose, and whenever they'd gotten into stupid fights over parties or food, the results were never good. In fact they were usually the worst locally centered ghost attacks they'd ever have.

Thinking about Cyrus again sent shivers down her spine. Sure, she said she was fine, and technically she was. Nonetheless, the feeling it had caused her would grace her memory every now and then. In fact, right now she could feel it pressing down against her...

Oh, crap.

She grit her teeth together and grasped her head, trying to expel the hold on her. The only thing she knew about the grip was that it was bad. She looked up and searched the skies above her for any sign, but saw none. She was ready to dismiss the sensations to her psyche when she heard a loud crash behind her.

Sam swerved back and saw cars toppled, people lying on the ground, some kneeling and gripping their hair in what looked like pain. Above the scene of chaos floated a waving mass of black cloth. _Cyrus_, she thought to herself. She reached into her backpack and pulled out her cell phone, diving into an alley and huddling behind a trashcan. It was getting harder for her to keep her train of thought but she managed to press the speed dial.

"Hey, Sam," said the voice on the other end of the phone.

"Danny!" she cried. "Cyrus is striking downtown, you can't miss it there's a bunch of screaming and cars being thrown around."

"What?" Danny yelled. "What's he doing?"

Sam stood up and peeked over the top of the trashcan to see. Her eyes widened and she temporarily forgot about the cell phone. Remembering it, she said, "Oh my God, Danny, this is bad. You have to get..."

She stopped talking. Danny yelled in her ear, but then it went away. She either dropped the phone or had gone deaf. Either way, she didn't care. Finding herself face down on the filthy concrete ground of the alleyway, she struggled against the presence filling her insides until finally, she succumbed.

The last thing she remembered seeing clearly was a wave of black robe.

* * *

_Ouch. Sorry about that one. But this was a huge sized chapter, be happy I did this in about two-three days. Well, please read and review and wait for Eternal: Balance or Never Good Enough: Tactics._

_See you in the afterlife,_

_Saramis Kismet_


	5. Tactics

**Never Good Enough**

_I did pretty well, getting this chapter written, despite the fact that my week's been really rough. Homework, gang wars, family, hospitals, et cetera. But somehow my writing's quickest when my life is roughest. Go figure. _

_This chapter is pretty fast paced so it was hard to keep it flowing how I wanted, but we're doing suspense in English lately so it's helping But something pretty creepy is revealed here. It was creepy to me, just writing it. But over all, I'm satisfied. Angry Danny is so fun to write._

_Thanks to reviewers: Dreamer for lyf, Fey Phantom, Digital Dreamer, sleep warrior, Snapcat, azngirlchibi, Frimmy. bluejolteon, and xheartkreuzx.

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_

**Tactics**

"So what were you guys doing back there other than faking out, huh?"

"We were just talking," Danny growled, crossing his arms and glaring at Tucker as they walked down the street to his friend's house. It was probably safer than his home at the given moment. Sam had separated from them not long ago to walk the much less convenient path to her house. The chances of it not being because of their spat were slim to none. "And it's not 'faking out', okay? It's called 'fake out-make out'." At this, Tucker smirked triumphantly, succeeding in agitating Danny even more. This was getting old fast. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"No reason," he said, smiling angelically. He hopped on the balls of his feet as he walked.

"Tucker…"

"Or, no reason meaning that you already know, oh half-ghost ladies' man," he replied. Thinking on his words, Tucker frowned. "Alright, how the heck is it that you're the ladies' man of our dynamic duo? I'm the comic relief, aren't I? Man it's always the weird one in the group!"

This time, Danny couldn't help but laugh at his reaction. "I'm not the ladies' man, Tuck," he said. "You just happen to not be it, either."

Tucker seemed to think over this before nodding. "Yeah, I guess so. If you were the romantic one Sam would be your-"

"I swear, one more word about me liking Sam and I'll lodge your PDA in your stomach."

Nervously, Tucker looked from his pocket where his PDA was to Danny's hands. "You… you can do that, can't you?" Danny nodded, the smile of victory plastered on his face now. "Okay. I believe you. You don't like Sam." His shoulders relaxed and he faced forward again just as Tucker said, "So what were you talking about then? All cracks aside, Sam seemed pretty miffed with you."

Memories of their earlier discussion slash argument raided his mind again. "Valerie" he lied. He had his answer prepared long ago. "Just the usual gripe about trust, danger, et cetera et cetera."

"Figures," Tucker mumbled. "It's not that she doesn't have a point or anything, you know." Danny felt bad again for lying to one of his close friends, but if Sam had reacted so badly, he didn't want to bother Tucker with it. He could only hope Sam had the same idea of not telling him.

"Hold on, dude, my phone's ringing." He reached into his pocket and took out a cell phone, flipping it open. "It's Sam," he sang.

"Let me see it," Danny said, holding his hand open. To Tucker's look he said, "Is that your stomach ringing?" Two milliseconds later the phone was to his ear. "Hey, Sam."

"Danny!" came the distressed but quiet voice of Sam. "Cyrus is striking downtown, you can't miss it. There's a bunch of screaming and cars being thrown around!"

Half of his internal organs jumped up into his chest. "What! What's he doing?"

"What's who doing?" asked Tucker, eyebrows raised.

Danny clutched his cell phone to his ear, listening intently as Sam checked on whatever the ghost was doing. Over his shoulder, Tucker was bobbing up and down on his feet to try and hear her, as well. "Oh my God, Danny, this is bad. You have to get…" Dreaded silence met his ears as Sam's voice faded into a thin whisper then disappeared completely.

Red flags went up in his mind. "Sam?" Danny asked slowly, apprehension rising in his stomach. After a few seconds, the silence was replaced by an even worse sound: the clang of the phone hitting the ground, and then the static. "Sam!"

He shut the phone and thrust it back into the hands of Tucker, who almost dropped it in surprise. "What happened?" he asked eagerly. Danny ignored his question and grabbed his wrist. After looking around their surroundings quickly, he ducked behind a car, friend in tow, and focused on becoming Phantom. When he finished changing, the two became invisible and Danny flew into the air. Tucker struggled with grappling to his arm as they gained altitude, yelling into his ear. "What the heck is going on, man?"

Danny blinked and stopped in midair. He felt Tucker jerk forward and heard him yelp in fear. Usually his friends were used to flight but he must have been focused and finding out what happened. "Sorry," he apologized, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. His mind was full of images of Cyrus, downtown, and whatever was happening to the people there and Sam.

"It's cool, man," Tucker said. He forced calm into his voice, but the wavering betrayed him. "Just take a second to breathe and chill out your nerves. Now, tell me what on earth is wrong with Sam!"

Danny took a deep breath and tried to collect what all he gathered from the phone call. "I… I don't know," he admitted. "Cyrus is downtown, doing something really bad to the people there. Sam was about to tell me exactly what when her voice just started to break off, like she wasn't listening anymore. Then I guess she dropped the phone."

Tucker groaned deeply. That was never a comforting sound coming from him, Danny noticed immediately. "What?" he asked. "What was that for?"

"Those Nasty Burgers are coming back on me, what do you think it means?" Tucker cried sarcastically.

"_Tucker_," he growled.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, not a time for jokes," Tucker sighed. "Anyway, you remember that freaky-deaky, supernatural thing the ghost did to her last night, right?"

Danny gulped just thinking about that. Her face seemed so vacant, so empty… and she wouldn't react to anything they said to her until she snapped out of it. Sam had stopped listening to him on the cell phone, he thought with sudden realization. "You don't think?"

"Yeah, I do," said Tucker. "So do you know exactly where she is?"

"She cut off before she told me; I just know it's downtown." This answer seemed to bring him back to reality. "Oh, duh, why aren't we flying there?"

"I don't know! You're the pilot!" Danny sighed exasperatedly and felt his legs disappear as he headed in the direction of downtown, heading first for the route that Sam took when she walked home from the Nasty Burger. If what Tucker had suggested was what had happened to her this time, he couldn't wait to get his hands on that ghost for everything he'd already done to him and his friends. Valerie's arm, Sam's whatever it was, Danny and the… well, the list was long enough to kick some militant ghost butt.

"One hundred and twelve miles per! _One hundred and twelve miles per!_" Tucker yelped, clinging to Danny's torso with one arm, undoubtedly keeping tight hold of his beret with the other. Danny felt him slipping down to his nonexistent legs. He slowed a little as they neared the tall business buildings of downtown Amity Park.

Below him Danny saw the streets suspiciously clear of any signs of life other than the few cars speeding down the road in the opposite direction. All were good, familiar signs of ghost activity in proximity. However, he couldn't see any real signs that any ghosts had attacked. Nothing seemed out of place yet.

Not like that fact made either of them feel any better.

"Ugh, where are they?" Danny asked, pausing over the business center to search for the ghost fiend. He let go of their invisibility. The first thing he saw was Tucker's head bent back to look behind them.

"There!"

Danny turned around and gasped to find the scene of chaos below them. Just as Sam had said, there were a number of overturned cars, toppled traffic lights, and smoke rising from one of the busiest streets of the city. The only difference from her limited report was that there were no people screaming. In fact, Danny couldn't see any people at all.

Not knowing where Sam was at was even more troubling than if he knew she was down there. "There isn't anybody here," he commented, lowering down to the abandoned street. The only sounds were that of small, crackling fires and the wind blowing newspapers down the road. It was hard not to imagine a scene from a suspense movie with the tension around him.

"I don't know about you," Tucker said, "but I don't like this at all. Do you have the thermos?"

Danny instinctively reached behind him for the loop in his belt he would carry the thermos in, but his fingers only grazed the air. He cursed under his breath. "Sam has it with her."

"I like this even less now," Tucker said, pressing his back against Danny's and looking around. "Where do you think they could be?"

"No idea. That's what's bothering me." The longer they waited on the street, the deeper Danny's need to face Cyrus grew. If he were human enough, his face would be flushed with his frustration. Why wouldn't he show himself so he could finish their fight?

Danny shut his eyes tightly and willed his angers away. Cyrus was getting to him… he had to focus.

"What are you doing? Get out of here, Tucker," Danny said, nudging Tucker towards an alleyway. "There's nothing you can do." Suddenly, he gasped and exhaled, his ghost sense coloring it blue.

Both boys jerked their heads to the left to see a swirl of black robes appear, taking the shape of a familiar body. A hollow laugh escaped from the folds before the head of Cyrus appeared. He crossed his arms and looked at the two teenagers with a smug expression. "And what makes you think that there's anything you can do, human?"

Danny groaned impatiently and pushed Tucker away, clenching his fists. Ignoring the cry of protest from him and the mocking jibe from the ghost, he demanded, "What have you done here, Rogaine Man?"

"Young people in these times simply don't show proper respect to their superiors," Cyrus mused, pursing his lips thoughtfully. "Always with the sarcasm, never serious about anything they are."

"Well, this usually seriously hurts everything," Danny said, lifting from the ground and torpedoing toward the ghost with a fist glowing with a ghost ray pulled back to make contact-

He gagged as his airway was constricted tightly and he was stopped in the midst of his momentum. His hands reached up to his neck and he felt the cold grip of Cyrus's hands.

"Hmm. That was rather easy," Cyrus noted to himself. With one arm-movement, he flung Danny away from him and towards a brick building. Danny closed his eyes and focused on going intangible. When he came out around the other side, his ran his fingers over his sore neck. Something about how Cyrus had stopped him felt strange…

Pushing the thought from his mind for now, he went through the building again, this time remaining invisible until the last possible second. He reappeared inches from Cyrus, and this time he was finally able to make contact. The ghost was pushed into the building opposite them. Rubble rained down from where he was.

"I'll ask you again," he said while he was disoriented. "Where is my friend?"

As the dust settled around his body, Cyrus smiled a sinister grin. "Why don't you learn for yourself?"

"Well, even though that would be awfully convenient," Danny said, crossing his arms, "I haven't gotten to that point yet."

"Perhaps you should consider learning a bit more about your enemies before attacking them, human," he replied airily. Something prickled the back of Danny's neck as Cyrus gave him an all-knowing stare.

Look behind you, idiot, his eyes seemed to say.

"Danny!" Tucker yelled from below him. He turned behind him to find Tucker in the alley he'd pushed him into, only instead of being on the ground, he was on the fire escape and pointing into the shadows. At first he couldn't see what it was that Tucker was indicating, but finally something emerged from the darkness. He held his breath in, a cat ready to pounce whatever it was that would attack.

How surprised was he when he saw a little boy, maybe seven years old, walk slowly out to the street, staring up at him with calm, innocent eyes. There was dirt smudged on his face and a rip in his brown pants. Danny looked curiously from the child, to Tucker climbing the rest of the way to the rooftop, to Cyrus who was looking on with mild interest. He wasn't making a move, excusing Danny from having to.

He turned back to the boy and knelt down to face him. The boy's eyes were wide and glassy looking. "Are you okay, kid?" he asked, reaching a hand out to wipe some dust from his dirty clothes.

The boy's hand flew up and caught Danny's gloved wrist, holding it in place easily. Nothing but his arm had even twitched. Something wasn't right with the way the boy frowned up at him. Danny smiled and laughed nervously, pulling his hand away slowly. "What's up, huh?"

A hard metal object whammed into Danny's head, causing him to stumble. He winced and saw a can lying at his feet. "Danny! Look! Up! Already!" Tucker yelled from the rooftop.

Danny craned his neck up and saw Tucker pointing back into the alley. "Not at me, genius, that way!"

Turning back to the space behind the boy, Danny jumped back, eyes wide. "What the hell?" he cried, lifting up off of the ground and staring.

A small crowd of fifteen people, twenty at the most, had appeared out of nowhere at the entrance of the corridor. Some wore business suits, others wore jogging suits, and he saw a few other children in the midst. All of the people were staring up quietly at him, and to be perfectly honest, it was giving him deeper creeps than most other things had, and he was presently fighting a ghost with veins popping out of his head.

"What... What is this, Cyrus?" Danny asked loudly, voice shaking slightly.

Cyrus closed his eyes tightly, as though concentrating intently. "You wanted to know where your human girl was, right, half-breed?" he said, opening his eyes slowly and lifting an arm, pointed at the crowd. Danny saw this and believed him to be ready to lash out. He pointed a pair of glowing fists at him when, once again, Tucker's voice broke all other thoughts in his mind.

"Sam?"

He jerked back and scanned the street at Tucker's outburst. There, in the street, stood Sam, separate from the small group of people. She was looking up just as silently as the rest, except only her wide eyes were laid on Cyrus's form. The scene was immediately recognizable, imprinted yet again on his memory. Whatever he'd done last night, he had done it again. He had done it to all of them. Only this time, Sam was under its full control. Their empty, lonely gazes chilled him to the core.

"Your companion has a strong determination," Cyrus commented, as though he were analyzing something in a school assignment. "She is even sometimes able to-"

Sam stumbled forward, almost tripping and landing on her knees. One of her hands raised slowly to her face, as though another hand was trying to pull it back down. Her fingernails dug into her cheek and she made a sound like a wounded animal, deep from within her.

"Ah, see, that is a perfect example." Cyrus extended his fingers again and Sam's arms fell again. She crumbled to the ground, unmoving except for the small, harsh movements of her chest.

Time seemed to stop, and he briefly wondered if it had. No. She wasn't dead. His best friend was not dying, not again.

Before Danny even realized what he was doing, he found himself fading into invisibility and flying around Cyrus, coming up on his other side, and blasting his arm away from the people. A few of them also fell to the ground, some muttering incoherently, others simply becoming useless masses much as Sam had.

"Tell me what you're doing to these innocent people now, or else!" Danny yelled.

Cyrus laughed in amusement. He shook the arm Danny had hit to ease the slight pain. "Or else," he said. "Trust me, human, unlike you I know what my opponent is capable of. Or else is not incredibly threatening to me."

"I have a new 'or else' I don't think you know much about yet." The idea of using the ghostly wail swam through his mind, growing more and more appealing with each snide word that escaped the ghost's mouth. He was pretty sure that he hadn't even used that power since defeating his evil self, and seeing as how none of that actually happened, there was no possible way Cyrus could know about it.

"No," yelled Tucker. He ran across the street and settled next to Sam, grabbing her wrist and pressing down on her wrist to feel a pulse. "Danny, not now! There are people coming, look!"

Sure enough, Danny looked down the street to see a succession of vans speeding down the street, led by an unfortunately familiar vehicle: the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle. His parents, news reporters, and who knew what other idiots would intrude on a ghost attack, were heading straight for him. Danny didn't know exactly what Cyrus had done to the people here, but he knew more regular people weren't going to help him out.

Danny moaned and threw a round of ghost rays at the bases of a few streetlamps and traffic lights, adding to the obstacles in their paths. The news vans weren't able to avoid them, but the RV drove over them like a military tank.

And, if he wasn't mistaken, Danny thought he saw a red figure flying to the scene as well. The inconveniences were starting to give him a throbbing headache.

He didn't have time to fight Cyrus. "Get these people out of here as quickly as you can," Danny ordered his friend, who was trying to lift Sam from the ground. "The kids first, then the rest."

"What about Sam?" Tucker asked, nodding at the limb body in his arms.

"Kids first," he repeated. He turned his back on the battle and flew out to meet the series of vans parking at the edge of the scene. The first two people to run out were his parents, Maddie carrying two handheld ecto-guns and Jack shouldering some huge dangerous looking weapon that's function he couldn't remember.

Maddie raised her guns at Danny. He leaned back and held his hands up in a friendly manner, but she didn't take notice. "Stand aside, ghost," she hissed, "before we have to take you down as well."

She asked him to move? That slightly surprised him. Apparently, his parent's had the same view on him as Valerie did: Danny Phantom was both ally and enemy. The enemy part he still didn't like, though.

"Hey," Jack said, lowering his weapon slightly. "Isn't that Tucker and Sam over there?"

Maddie followed Jack's line of vision. Danny turned his head back, as well. The situation behind them had changed again. Most of the people were back on their feet again, and Cyrus had his hand outstretched again. Tucker was dragging the little boy and a nine-year-old girl behind him to the sidelines, trying to support a half-awake Sam on his other arm.

"Oh, move!" Maddie cried, running forward with Jack next to her.

"No, stop!" Danny yelled. He didn't know what was happening, or if anything would happen to them as well. They shouldn't be going down there! He held a hand out to stop them, but suddenly, fingers grabbed his arm and he was being dragged higher into the air.

The person heaved him up and turned him around to face her. Once Danny stopped feeling dizzy, he was able to focus on Valerie's masked face. "What is going on, Phantom?" she said forcibly, raising him by some loose fabric around his neck into the air above her.

Breath came to him with a struggle, his collar wrapping around his air passage. "I don't know!" he choked, squirming around before remembering he had ghost powers. He phased through her hands and settled his feet on the space on the hover board in front of her.

"Yes, you do." Valerie pulled a bulky weapon from her backpack, unfolding it by its hinges and locking the pieces in place. "You've been here longer, you've seen what he's been doing. Even if you don't know everything, you know something. Now, spill, ghost."

"Alright," he said. "Cyrus, the ghost we fought last night, made a huge mess down there. I don't know how but the people who were in the area… I think he did something to them. They're like… zombies, or something." Zombies. Living dead. A terrible taste filled his mouth.

Through her mask he heard her curse under her breath. "The ugly bald one? And Dad still has my new artillery…" Valerie grunted and pushed him off of her board. It wasn't as though he would've fallen, but he was now ticked off at her, too. He didn't need anyone else being rude to him, but she had the right idea. She was flying down to join in the battlefield.

He followed after her, righting himself and scanning the scene for any sign of Cyrus. The only real fighting taking place anymore was human against human. He saw his parents throw down their guns and try to restrain the slow-moving people who were trying to lash out at them. Above them, Tucker had managed to drag three unwilling bodies away, and he was now trying to snap them out of it.

Valerie appeared next to him. "He's not here," she commented.

"No, he's here," he replied. "I can feel it…"

His ghost sense activated.

Valerie screamed, being thrown away from his side by an invisible force. As she tumbled through the air, her board flying off somewhere else, Cyrus appeared with his hand outstretched to her. She screamed again, only a different sound. Instead of surprise, she was in pain. Suspended in the air, her board soaring back toward her, her body stopped twitching and she floated still. The ghost grinned in satisfaction.

"I almost pity how much of a disadvantage you are at with me," he said to Danny. "But I'm not here just to teach you. If you won't accept a teacher, you must learn from experience."

"Stop it!" Danny yelled, staring at Valerie. Her face was masked but he could envision the absence of self it would have he it were revealed. Cyrus only laughed in reply and faded away, reappearing high above him. His fists aimed upward, ready to strike, when he felt something hit him in his stomach and throw him off course.

The air blew out of him. His suit was covered in the red substance he'd seen used last night. Valerie's canon was aimed at him and smoking.

"I'm not the one to stop right now," Cyrus said. "She is. Stop her, human."

Valerie fired at him again, this time with a glowing ectoplasm based goo. This time, he learned his lesson and split himself at the waist. Going intangible didn't work against ectoplasm, but this did.

From behind him, he heard someone call his name. He chanced a look and saw Tucker leaning over the edge of the building behind him, Fenton Thermos in hand. Behind him, he saw Sam, awake, holding two alert children back from the fight. A wave of cold water rushed over him. If they had awakened, had the other humans come back to their senses as well? "Take it," Tucker said, tossing it up to Danny.

What good was the thermos going to do against a human, Danny thought. Right as his fingers grazed the cylinder, he was pushed down toward the ground as a purple net wrapped around him. He fell and landed on the ground, his head forced to look straight up, as it grew tight around him.

The underside of Valerie's hover board closed in on him. The muzzle of a small gun appeared over the front side as Valerie aimed below her at Danny's useless form. He tried to become intangible, but he couldn't phase through the material. He should have guessed; other than some features, it was the same net future Val had used.

Past the side of the board, he saw Cyrus. He looked down at him, shaking his head. "So easily defeated, and by a human as well. Of course, she did have help," he said. "We'll finish this another day." The robes billowed around him until her disappeared completely.

What the hell was up with this guy? Every time Danny asked that question, it was never answered, and he felt himself getting repetitive.

"Argh!" Valerie groaned and the board tipped downward, about to plunge straight into him…

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_Cliffhangers are so, so fun to write. I apologize, but they simply are! Again, though this among some of the longer chapter's I've ever written, it seems too short. I feel I paced this too fast and I tried to even it out in a few places, but the rest are supposed to seem fast-paced. And doesn't Danny know not to trust the little kids? Sigh. Gosh, I love writing Cyrus. The action is in the beginning here, the research comes later, the opposite of CAI. Well, this is a long note, so I think I'll end it. Review! Theorize, I love it when you theorize…_

_See you in the afterlife,_

_Saramis Kismet_


	6. Camaraderie

**Never Good Enough**

_I dunno why I'm doing this; I guess I'm impatient. 4 review, well, they were all loverly ones. Some nice D/V, S/T, and D/J interaction is in here. And when I ask for theories, it doesn't mean you have to make some. It's just encouragement, kay? __

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_

**Camaraderie**

"He's not here." Valerie flew up next to the ghost, on her edge. This ghost was… different. He had defeated her last night and she didn't even remember how.

"No, he's here," Phantom said while he searched for the ghost that had started this whole scene. "I can feel it…"

After that, the only thing she registered was the pain. The feeling of something trying to push her deep within herself overwhelmed her. Then…

"Val… wake up… okay?"

The first thing she remembered feeling was the air going into her chest. Next came the pain every breath seemed to cause. Valerie's eyes fluttered open and stared up at the afternoon sun, unprotected by her visor. She winced into the light, and focused on trying to hear more than just pieces of the voice next to her.

"You're awake. How are you feeling?" White hair fell inches from her face and ghost green eyes bore into hers. At least the sun wasn't burning her retinas anymore. "You didn't fall very far," he said, leaning back out of her sight. "But you did land front first. I bet it must have hurt."

"Maybe," she rasped. It was hard for her to find her voice, as though her mind didn't have a hold on her vocal chords anymore.

She pushed herself up slowly with her elbows, her upper body throbbing slightly. The severity of the soreness was beginning to dissipate, Valerie realized. Already she felt as if she could attempt standing without falling over again.

The ghost kid put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down in a sitting position when she tried to stand. He wasn't very bright, this ghost, was he? "I'm not your enemy right now," she growled, turning to face him, "but unless you want me to fire at you, you'll take your hands…." The words were taken from her mouth when she finally focused on the ghost boy that she was yelling at.

He sat there with his legs curled up, floating a few inches from the concrete road, staring at her with wide and frightened eyes. She knew her threat hadn't scared him that badly, especially since she hadn't even finished it. In fact, he was looking so intently at her that he may as well be looking at something far away.

"What?" she asked.

The word seemed to bring him back to their plane. He blinked and made eye contact with her again. "Sorry," he said. He reached behind him and pulled out a mass of red material. "Here."

Valerie's eyes grew wide and she ran a hand over her face. She'd known her mask wasn't on, but it didn't seem to register fully. "Give me that!" she screamed, snatching it from his hands and pulling it over her face, clasping the back of it to her bodysuit. Had anyone seen? Looking around, she found that the street was full of people. None of them, however, seemed to be paying any attention to her or Danny Phantom. She spotted the Fentons tending to the people she had seen fighting them before, and a few news cameras located around the area.

Boy, was he lucky that no one had apparently seen her. "Do not ever take off my mask again," she warned. "You already gave away my identity to my Dad. Don't make matters worse for yourself."

"I sort of had to see if you were dead or not," Phantom retorted with sarcasm. "Sorry for worrying about your safety. It'd be pretty bad if you became a ghost while fighting the one you hate the most, huh?"

Valerie was about to respond by pulling a gun from her backpack, but she stopped short. "I wasn't fighting you," she said. "I was helping you look for Cyrus when… uh…." She paused when he pointed down at the large redglob on the front of his suit, blocking out half of the emblem on his torso. It had come from her very own weapon.

What had happened to her? She couldn't even remember. No way had she turned her gun on Phantom while they were searching for someone who was, at the moment,higher on the priority list. Unless he had done something really stupid, of course, but she would've remembered that. "What happened to me?" she asked slowly. "What happened to everyone else?"

The Phantom sighed and hung his head low. "I'm not sure," he said. "That ghost… he did something to you. He did something to everyone, but I don't know how, or even why yet. All I know is that he did it."

"Did _what_?" His vagueness only succeeded in making her even more confused.

He rested his feet on the ground and stood up fully. It was the first time they'd ever stood this close without Valerie trying to aim at his head through a target. She realized that the ghost was a little shorter than her, and lanky, like an average fourteen-year-old kid. Not for the first time, a guilty part of her mind took note of his more positive features. He seemed so innocent when he was like this.

Another, much more sensible, part of her mind laughed darkly. Innocent. Right.

Phantom stole a look to the left, where the mass of humans was congregated and a smaller group was walking toward them, camera in tow. "Can we finish this somewhere less public?" he asked, jumping back into the air and soaring away.

Valerie looked frantically from the reporters to the fleeing ghost, and decided the media wasn't going to be her friend right now. She grabbed her fallen weapon and hover board, activated it, and took off after her temporary brother in arms.

Luckily, he didn't fly far. He simply turned into the next available alleyway and settled there, sitting on the railing of one of the fire escapes. He crossed his legs and put his chin in his hands when Valerie arrived in front of him, stationing her board in the air and sitting down in front of him as well, arms crossed over her chest. "So are you going to tell me what happened to me or not?"

"Fine, fine, calm down," he said. "Jeez, you know, you should take some anger manage- …" Valerie lifted the hand that held the gun slightly and he stopped talking immediately.

"Okay, here's what happened. Cyrus appeared out of nowhere and threw you off of your hover board. When you started falling… I think he stopped you from falling without touching you. Then you screamed for a while, but then you got really quiet. I figure he did to you what he did to the others." He closed his eyes and shivered slightly. "Then you started shooting at me. You hit me with some purple net thing, and when I was down on the ground totally helpless, Cyrus just disappeared. Whatever he had done to you and the rest of people must've worn off because you fell down then, and you would've hit me if tuh —" The Phantom held a fist to his mouth and started coughing violently.

"Uh… you okay there?" Valerie asked hesitantly. Not only did she not know ghosts could cough or get sick, but she felt seriously uncomfortable with asking if he was healthy.

He nodded. "Sorry about that," he said. "Anyway, if I hadn't gotten the net off you'd have landed on me."

Part of Valerie stomped in frustration. If he hadn't gotten the net off… But hearing that her body had been controlled by a ghost was infuriating, especially if it meant she was dangerous to people she wasn't supposed to be dangerous to. "How do you think he did it?"

The ghost shrugged. "I don't know. Well, I have an idea, but I forget what to call it. What does it mean when you can move things with your mind?"

"Telekinetic, you mean?"

"Yeah, that." Danny leaned forward, happy that Valerie was being civil with him. "It's not strange for ghosts to be able to control the movement of regular objects, but its usually limited, and I've never seen a ghost keep a human in place before without some kind of bond." As he spoke, a few extra pieces seemed to slip into place. He reached around behind his head and rubbed the base of his neck absentmindedly. "Cyrus is definitely powerful. I admit… I don't have a clue as to what exactly he did to you humans. Or why."

"You know, other than almost letting your name slip, he can sure act well."

From above the space where the two ghost hunters were talking, Sam and Tucker hung their heads over to listen. As long as Valerie didn't decide to take a leisurely look up at the blue sky, they were safe from being seen.

Tucker nodded thoughtfully at what Sam said. "It's a good thing, too, otherwise Val would guess something was up by now. Not that it was too hard to figure out he's telekinetic," he added. Sam raised a brow at him. "What? I'm just being honest."

"Ugh, can you hear what they're saying?" Sam chanced bending more of her body over the edge of the building, but Tucker caught her around her collar and pulled her back. "You're stretching my shirt out, Tuck," she complained, wrenching away from him. "I'm just trying to keep up with what's going on."

"Well, stop it." Tucker walked away from the edge and leaned against a generator. "Danny said to stay out of sight, so I'm staying out of sight."

Sam rolled her eyes, but then froze. She looked at Tucker cautiously and asked, "Are… are you being sensible?"

That deserveda moment of thought. "Usually only one of us is the sensible one," he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "It's usually you, but hey, I get my shining moment sometimes."

She averted her eyes and sat on the edge of the barrier. "I guess I'm just shaken up by what happened earlier," she murmured, biting her lip in her nervous fashion.

"You mean that fight you had at the Nasty Burger?" Tucker suggested.

"Yes, Tucker, the stupid teenage fight I had with Danny," she said sarcastically. "Because petty high school spats are way more traumatic than having my body controlled by some freaky bald ghost."

"You sure you're okay after that?" Tucker asked. He looked at her with concern. Sam scoffed, but he knew it was just a Sam thing. Hadn't she just said the words 'way more traumatic'? It was hard not to tell that she was still bothered by it. Plus, there were the bruises she'd gotten when Tucker tried to pull her and two little kids up a fire escape. That escapadewas a nightmare.

"I'm fine," she grumbled. She turned her head to look down at Danny and Valerie with a mysterious frown on her face. "I'm surprised that she hasn't even tried to blow his head off since last night. Then again, she'd not an idiot, is she?"

Tucker rolled his eyes. How many times had he heard someone say that lately? "No, Sam, she is not an idiot."

"I mean, at least she's serious about it," she continued, not moving her eyes from the spot below her. "Sure, she still probably wants revenge on him, but she can rationalize. Right?" She turned back to her silent friend. "Right?"

Nodding, Tucker smiled slyly. "What are you thinking, Sam?"

"Nothing…." Sam turned her head back to the alley. "Just that… whoa, wait. Rewind a couple of minutes. How did you find out about the Nasty Burger?"

"Danny told me… oh, was I not supposed to tell you?" Tucker tried to remember the conversation he'd had with Danny before getting Sam's call, and couldn't recall Danny telling him to keep it on the down low.

"Well, no, I just didn't figure he'd tell you about it." She pulled her feet over onto the edge as well and held her legs close to her body. "I think it's just so stupid, what he said about it."

Tucker smiled. He figured that he knew why Sam was even more aggressive with keeping Valerie at a distance than even he was. It was such a girl thing. He knew this even though the only experience he'd ever had with girls had been her and Valerie. "Look, Danny knows what he's doing." He walked back next to her and looked down at the two. "He's not going to let anything get to him, especially that. There's no reason to be jealous."

"That's what I told him," she sighed. "He wouldn't listen to me."

Wait… what? He was confused now. "Um, are we talking about the same fight?"

Sam turned to face him, looking just as puzzled. "What are you talking about, then?" Her hair flew forward into her face and Tucker's beret slid to the side from a violent rush of wind. They looked up and saw the bottom of Valerie's hover board flying up and away from them.

"Well that was definitely interesting," said Danny from behind them.

Tucker looked back down and saw Danny floating up slowly, smiling to himself. His eyes landed on Sam and he hovered over her, looking at her closely. "Danny, the only thing allowed this close to my face is my hand," she said, squirming underneath his gaze.

"You are definitely okay?" he asked again.

"What, you didn't make sure of that before Valerie came to?" she asked. "I'm not great, but I am okay."

Danny floated back over the roof and two rings of light appeared around his waistline. When he landed, the last traces of ghost left his body. He grasped a bit of his shirt and sighed. "That gunk was really starting to get annoying."

"Save it. Fill us in on what was so interesting about your little chat," Tucker said, sliding down to the floor and looking up expectantly.

Danny nodded, but he held up a hand. "First I need to ask Sam something."

"God, Danny, I already told you I'm –"

"No, I'm not going to ask if you're okay," he said, moving his patience hand to her. "It's important though." He dropped down to the floor on his knees, one propped up un a kneeling position. He continued studying her intently until the laughter that Tucker couldn't contain anymore erupted. The images that his position sent through his mind were too hilarious to bear.

"What?" they asked, confusion written in their knit brows.

Tucker took in a deep breath and composed himself. "Nothing. Just... just continue, please."

The two looked back to each other and shared a shrug. "Whatever," Danny said. "Are you sure you can't remember anything about what happened to you?" Sam nodded vigorously. "No, I mean, was there anything… different about it this time than last time?"

"I… I don't think so," she said. Was there anything different? Why, exactly, was he asking her?

"Because last night," he persisted, "whatever he had tried to do didn't work. This time, he did it again, with a lot more people, and for the most part it worked on you. Can you tell me if it felt stronger, or anything?"

Sam leaned back, her hands supporting her from falling off the edge. She forced her mind to review everything from when she was walking down the sidewalk to when she opened her eyes to see Tucker. There was something there… some empty, black space that didn't seem to take up and time of her life, but it was there. "I think," she said slowly. "I'm not a hundred percent sure. It wasn't more powerful than last night, but it was different." Her hair fell in her face as she looked down. "I can't describe it very well."

Danny stood up and put a hand on her shoulder. Tucker moved closer to her as well, leaning forward to peak through her hair. "Come on, Sam," he said, "it's cool. Cheer up, Gothic kid."

A sharp pain in his upper arm resulted from that comment. "Don't say that to me again, and I will."

"See?" Tucker said, smiling and rubbing his arm. "She's okay."

What a freak, Sam thought, but inwardly she was grateful. Humor was just how Tucker handled things. She looked up to Danny again. "So what exactly did you and Valerie talk about?"

Danny blew out loudly and reached behind his neck. It was easily recognizable as a stalling reflex he'd picked up a while ago, something he did when he was nervous or thinking. "I didn't tell her too much," he confessed. "Just enough to get some insight. She's totally focused on finding out his weakness, but we couldn't think of one right now."

"Do you think keeping her in the dark is such a good idea?" Tucker asked.

"No," Danny said. "But I'm in the dark, as well, and the rest of my ideas are all just stupid theories." Angrily, he kicked at a pile of dead leaves that had made their way to the rooftop. "He got away, too. He's going to come back and I'm not going to know how to beat him."

Something wasn't right about the way Danny was handling this situation. It hadn't even been a day and there were already two fights with him, but they'd been faced with a lot more serious situations. As much as Tucker wanted to ask what was going on inside of his friend's mind, he didn't think now would be the best time. Danny needed more time to cool off some of his adrenaline, and Sam wasn't in much of a state to hang around any more.

It was weird. Sam, no matter how good she thought she was at hiding it, was definitely put off by Cyrus's attack. They were all confused, but Sam was always trying to avoid describing it and having people worry over her. He'd have to ask her about that, later, too. That, and what she thought he was talking about earlier.

"It's okay, Danny," Sam said, breaking the silence. "I guess I just want to go home. And I think that you should get back to your parents, too. They've got to be wondering where you are, if they saw me and Tucker out there. Plus, you should fill in Jazz."

Danny took a moment to consider, but nodded. "Yeah, you should probably relax, huh?"

"All I need is to listen to my Morbid Anti-Social Youth CD and I'll be fine," Sam said, standing up and dusting off the back of her skirt.

"I thought your parents took that way from you after Danny got it," Tucker wondered out loud. He stood up as well and walked over to Danny.

Sam laughed darkly. "As if I wasn't smart enough to burn it to my computer." The two wrapped their hands around each of Danny's arms as he changed back into ghost form, each of them with different, dark thoughts plaguing their minds.

Tucker's just happened to be the least grave.

* * *

This was going to get seriously annoying after a while. 

If all Jazz was going to be able to do when something like this happened was sit on the couch, watch the television and bite her nails hoping for a glimpse of Danny, then she was going to have to confront her brother about her part. Ghost hunting wasn't a major importance in her future plans, nor did she want it to be. It was, unfortunately, the biggest part of her family's lives.

It was easy to hold back the impressions of ghost fighting when it was just her parents. It was normal for her to oppose the bonds of family at her age, despite her maturity. Then she found out about Danny, and ever since then she'd felt herself being sucked in to her parents' world. For the most part, she'd accepted it. Now that it was totally obvious that ghosts existed there wasn't much room left for her to argue, was there? Darn it.

She heard the door open in the entrance hall. She jumped up to meet whoever it was that entered, hoping that it might be Danny.

It wasn't. Maddie opened the door, followed shortly by Jack. Jack had a small piece of bandage tape on his chin, and both looked tired and confused.

"What happened?" Jazz asked, taking some of the weapons in her mother's hands from her and following them both into the basement

"A ghost attack on North Gresham and Kingston Drive, downtown," Jack said, making his way toward the weapons cases. It was where they kept frequently used weapons so they didn't have to deal with going all the way to the weapons vault everytime a ghost attacked. "At least, that's what the reports said."

"Our readings said that there were two ghosts in the vicinity," Maddie continued, "but the only one we saw was the ghost kid. Other than that, it was just humans." She placed the last of her guns into its placed and pushed down the door, pressing the automatic lock. "At first, we thought they were possessed, but they weren't showing up on the ghost detector."

"Can ghosts in human bodies be detected on that?" Jazz asked.

Her mother nodded, taking off her blue hood. "Usually, yes. But all at one moment, the people collapsed and seemed to go back to normal. None of them could remember anything about it."

"Loss of memory is a sign of being possessed," Jack countered, walking up behind her. "I should know. I was a meat puppet," he growled, suddenly looking very surly.

Maddie nodded, but didn't seem to think that it was news. "I know, Jack, but something was strange about that whole thing." She ran a finger through her hair and sighed. "Is Danny home yet?"

Where was he now, anyway? Usually he'd get home well before his parents would from a fight. Was he hurt? "He called earlier," she lied. "He, Sam, and Tucker were at the park."

"Really?" she asked. The tone of her voice was suspicious, and Jazz felt her face heat up. "That's funny… we thought we saw Tucker and Sam at the battle scene."

So they were there! The only thing left to be answered was if they were hurt or not.

Maddie furrowed her brows and seemed to be considering her memories. "It must have been someone else. We didn't see them after everyone returned to normal."

"Okay, well, good luck with figuring out what happened," Jazz said, smiling enthusiastically. "I have to go upstairs and read. Call me when dinner's ready." She turned tail and raced upstairs, turning corners sharply until she reached her bedroom. She shut the door behind her and sighed, relieved. "You're okay."

Danny's eyes popped open and he sat up straight. He had been lying on her bed, knowing she'd bother him until he told her about everything, and waiting for her to enter."How come you get all the good pillows?"

"Come on Danny, spill," she said. "Mom and Dad are downstairs, totally stumped about what happened. Do you have any clue what went on? Was there really a ghost? Sam and Tucker were there, weren't they? Did either of them get hurt?"

"Whoa, Jazz, slow down," he said. "Lay off the all-nighters and caffeine. Only you would stay up during the summer to study."

"It's my senior year, thank you very much," Jazz retorted, "and, fine. What happened today?"

Danny leaned back on the bed and closed his eyes again, seeming very quiet and peaceful amidst all the stuffed animals and light colors. "Well, Sam's dad woke me up by yelling in my face about being –"

"Danny. Seriously."

He smirked to himself but kept his eyes closed. "Fine, I'll tell you. There was a ghost, and his name's Cyrus. I'm not sure what he did, but a lot of people seemed to be under his control. We figure thathe's telekinetic, or something."

"You mean Sam and Tucker?"

"Yeah, them," Danny said quickly. Jazz raised an eyebrow. "Sam and Tucker were helping me out, trying to keep the crowd under control, but when they saw my parents they ran away so they wouldn't be caught. Neither of them got hurt badly."

"Badly?" Jazz repeated, worry meter rising.

"I mean, they weren't hurt," he corrected. His face contorted as a yawn escaped his lips. "I'm pretty beat. I didn't get much sleep last night at Sam's, and then this whole thing. I'll be taking a nap." He disappeared from her sight, and she jumped. She still wasn't fully used to his invisibility. When his voice filled the room, it was more shocking. "Tell Mom and Dad I'm home so that they don't freak out and think I'm doing anything inappropriate again, will you?"

"Sure," she said, smiling to herself. "But you're not telling the truth, Danny. At least not all of it, I can tell."

When no one answered her, she shrugged and shook her head slowly. Whenever Danny decided to fully trust her would be a great day, indeed. She reached for her AP Calculus textbook and opened it up halfway, beginning to read.

* * *

_I wrote this in one day. I find that I'm getting better at writing chapters, including the details and such. Would anyone object to me, at some point, going back and rewriting Cold As Ice? Not all of it, just adding and subtracting here and there. Also, if Mind Over Matter becomes a four-part series…? I'm sorry it just keeps filling up!_

_See you in the afterlife,_

_Saramis Kismet_


	7. Information

**Never Good Enough**

_Okay, Secret Weapons completely screwed up my idea for Vlad. I'll use some of the events from there, which you'll see, but don't get on to me if something doesn't seem right. SW did not exist. stabs episode I can't deal with altering the timeline and everything. Sorry for the wait, major writer's block. Check updates on my profile for info. And ooh, CAI allusions in store._

Shameless Plug:_ The Ghost Sector. Visit now. TGS > DPO_

_Major thanks to all of you lovely and awesome reviewers. Rosadina, Fey Phantom, bluejolteon, xheartkruezx, Frimmy, and sleepwarrior.

* * *

_

**Information**

"That was a work of pure genius."

"Yeah, it was. Maybe in your opinion."

Tucker rolled his eyes knowingly. "You have to do that, don't you?

"Yes. If I don't, then my programming will cause me to self-destruct."

"C'mon, Sam," Danny said, pushing the door leading out of the theater from the side. The group had just finished watching the new summer comedy Tucker had been itching to see ever since he saw the previews a month ago. That was Tucker for you. "You know you thought it was funny."

This felt great. It had been four days since Danny had last seen Cyrus, and six since the big event involving his parents, Sam, and Valerie. There had been a short fight between him and Cyrus before then, where the ghost had simply appeared outside of his house, nearly beat Danny, but then disappeared as if summoned away by a superior officer. That was what the ghost's behavior reminded him of; a soldier, or something like that. Or a condescending teacher, constantly getting onto him about his skills like a rabid monkey on his back. Danny didn't like monkeys.

Although the sense that eventually something would happen to suck him back into that entire situation that made Danny's head hurt and blood boil a little bit, he couldn't ignore that it was summer, and he still had a life. After all, he wasn't a whole ghost. Then again this was his first summer being Danny Phantom.

Oh, just screw that whole train of thought.

"Yes, it was pretty funny," she stated blandly. "Was it a work of genius? No. It was Tucker's type of funny, not my type of funny."

"Well you've got to admit Sam," he said. "Your brand of funny isn't necessarily blockbuster type funny." Sam looked at him expectantly. "Because it's just so unique and original and non-mainstream like that," he added quickly to satisfy the lioness's tastes. She smirked, knowing that she had forced that out of him but enjoying the compliment anyway.

"It was still a good movie," Tucker grumbled, slightly put down by his friends words.

The group turned the corner and crossed the imaginary line into the busiest are of downtown. Other than ghost attacks, amity Park was actually relatively crime free. Hence the town motto that held true on the sign marking city limits. Thus, teenagers were allowed by their parents to roam around town during the late evening and early night.

They passed by various shops and stores, clubs that they had to veer around to avoid looks from the bouncers, and restaurants that they gazed into hungrily. Tucker had hogged all the popcorn, and the rest had littered the ground when Danny tried to blast a handful thrown into the air and forgot popcorn didn't stick together to form solid balls.

"So anyway, I was thinking," Sam said out of the blue. "Maybe when we get back to my place..." Sam's house seemed to have become the boy's favorite hang out place, much to Sam's aversion. "We could maybe try to find some information about… Danny?"

The three had walked by a small, darkly colored shop. Several steps back, Danny paused, looking into the window with interest. Tucker was the first to notice that he hadn't just randomly become invisible, and then Sam spotted him as well. They backtracked to where he was still staring into the shop and peered inside. Tucker shook his head and said urgently, "She is reeling you into the world of darkness and pointy metal objects, Danny. Snap out of it. Don't let your eyes –"

"Oh, stuff it already," Sam interrupted with an amused mile playing her face. "What's up, Danny? See something you like?"

Beyond the Plexiglas was a manikin adorned with what looked like an outfit right out of an Anne Rice reading, Morbid Antisocial Youth fanatic's closet. Or, in other words, something from a male version of Sam's closet. Dark, slightly baggy pants, black button up shirt with a green, smoky design on one side, and to complete the ensemble, a trench coat were hanging from the metal arms and body in the window. Of all people, the very common, very white T-shirt, blue jean wearing Danny Fenton was staring with greedy eyes.

Even Sam thought it was a little bit off.

"Tucker's right," he said in a mix of awe and fear. "You are influencing me. First it was music, and now this. I like that. I really like that."

"Excellent taste," Sam said distantly, staring into the window with an odd, almost dreamy expression.

Tucker cocked his head to the side in confusion, glancing between the two, before immediately banging it against the window. "Start wearing eyeliner and you're dead. Take my word for it; it's _not_ as fun as it sounds."

Danny shook his head and pulled Tucker away before he permanently damaged his brain. "I can't imagine wearing something. But I do kind of want it." He rounded on Sam and glared in mock accusation.

She simply raised her eyebrows. "Seriously?"

"Seriously?" repeated Tucker, only much more desperately.

"Seriously."

"All right, now this is serious. All kidding aside," Tucker said, "this is very serious."

Sam laughed and wrapped an arm around Danny, willing the more appealing images of Danny dressed in the outfit out of her mind. "Once you go black," she chanted, "you never go back."

Taking both of Sam's cheeks in hi palms, Tucker directed her gaze to his face. "Sam, look at me. Look at me very carefully. Are you looking?" Lost to whatever he was talking about, she simply nodded. "I am black. You just wear it. Don't even tell me that ever again." Thinking about the phrase once over, Tucker broke into a smile. "Aw, you want to be like me. Isn't that sweet, Danny?"

Apparently it was, since Danny immediately broke into laughter. Sam shook her head sadly. "Hah, hah, hah. No. You know what I mean."

"Before anyone starts talking about me again," Danny said, calming his breathing, "I'm not going Goth. I like the clothes, the music, but I'm not planning on it. Can we drop this for now?" With that he started walking again in the direction as earlier, Sam and Tucker following in his slipstream.

"Good answer," replied his friends simultaneously. The two exchanged glances, in which a mutual what-the-heck was shared. They seemed to agree not to delve any further by asking what the other meant.

"Well, like I was saying earlier," Sam said, "do you want to stop by my house and –"

Danny gasped, feeling as though he had been dumped into cold water. Too cold for a summer evening, and his ghost sense activating confirmed that there wasn't a sudden climate change from the warm summer night. Tucker and Sam both stiffened, looking at Danny as he began scanning the busy area for a decent hiding place. He knew it was going to happen soon, knew he was going to have to do this sooner or later. Friday night, middle of downtown, man this would be bad. It had been four days, Danny wasn't ready, stupid, stupid, and he'd been watching movies when he should've been –

"Surrender your vacant, cubical partitions to me, of face my terrible wrath!"

About one hundred coiled springs in Danny's body unraveled slowly. "Ah, jeez," he said, relaxing his shoulders. After a look of mutual exasperation with the others, Danny took the Fenton Thermos from Sam's hand and calmly walked behind a dumpster, went ghost, and chased the Box Ghost away in roughly three minutes.

Now if only he would stay that way.

Stupid thermos.

* * *

Danny stared slack jawed at the open hardcover book in his lap, utterly appalled. Over his should was Tucker, with a very similar reaction on his own face. Slowly Danny looked up from his spot of the floor, next to Sam's bed, and stared at his devious friend in disbelief. "I cannot believe that you actually told them to put this in here."

Sam began searching for a quick escape route from her bedroom. As of now, the second floor window was very appealing.

"We said we weren't going to tell anybody!" Tucker cried, his own eyes still glued to the page they had turned to.

The Casper High Yearbook, 2004, was propped open against Danny's knees. Does anyone remember a certain purple backed gorilla incident?

Laughing nervously, Sam began to back away from the victims of her wrath. "I, um, well," she stuttered. Why the heck wouldn't a decent excuse come into her mind at all times? Possibly because Danny was still looking at her like she'd just kicked a puppy into a river. She grinned sheepishly. "Surprise!"

Tucker raised his eyes and locked on target.

"Oh, come on you guys! I was young and naïve."

"This was eight months ago!" Danny accused, turning the book around to display the embarrassing thumbnail at the bottom of the page. It was the freshmen with last names E through G. Fenton and Foley were both supposed to be on this bad once, but instead, they were on it wise. "Do you know how scarring this is for a guy? Do you know what this means we can do now?"

Tucker thought about what Danny said for a minute and broke into a triumphant smile. "We get to tell everyone about you and the gorilla now!"  
That was news.

"What? No! I'm sorry, I was mad at you guys," she cried desperately. "It was some stupid thing again. I had gotten in a fight with Danny, and so I went and brought the picture to the yearbook committee. I had forgotten about it until –"  
"Wait a minute," Tucker interrupted. "You get mad at Danny, and so I have to suffer? That's not fair!"

"What the heck were you mad about that could've possessed you to do this?" Danny asked incredulously.

Sam coughed into her fist and sat down in the chair at her desk, incense burning next to her computer. Ignoring the question completely, she said, "Come on, I want to show you guys something I found earlier today."

"You are so not getting off the—"

"Tucker, shut your face and listen to me before I burn this stick of incense into your beanie."

Tucker grabbed one of the extra chairs she had asked to be sent into her room and took a seat at the desk. With half of his arsenal gone Danny grudgingly did the same and sat on the other side of her.

"Thank you," she said. She accessed Firefox and looked at her bookmarks, clicking on one of the links. A Flash introduction to a website began playing. A black background with green smoke and the words Ghost Portal Online formed out of them created the entrance page.

"Ghost Portal Online?" Danny asked. "What's this?"

"The most accurate website devoted to identifying and describing different kinds of ghosts that I could find after three days of searching," she explained. "There aren't many members, it's not exactly well-known, but decent all the same. I almost gave up all hope with Google. It's not entirely right, but it's better than most of what I've seen." The introduction faded away and a large directory of links to articles and a message board took its place. "I registered on the forums as MetalMistress. You guys should do it; too, it's pretty cool."

Danny leaned forward in interest. "Is there anything about Cyrus on here?"

Sam bit her lip and shook her head. "I didn't find anything. What I thought was hilarious was that they have an article about Ember in here. Someone besides me was actually sane during that event."

"Hey, so was I," Danny corrected.

Sam and Tucker turned slowly to him and stared.

"You know, most of the time."

"Right," Tucker laughed, turning back to the screen. "I'll put a note with the URL in my PDA and sign up for it later. This might be helpful."

"I'll register now," Danny said suddenly, grabbing the mouse and clicking the link to register. In the area where it asked him for his username, he pursed his lips in thought, and typed in PhantomHunter.

Oh, so original.

Danny wondered just how helpful this would be, though. They didn't have anything about Cyrus… and he still didn't know much about him, either. God, it was getting annoying to tell himself that all the time. But if some other people were able to label Ember as a ghost, it would be good to settle in with some people who might know their stuff.

After searching through the forums for a bit, though, Danny almost trashed that idea. "These people sound like Roswell conspiracy freaks," Danny complained. "Does anyone here know what they're talking about?"

"We do," Tucker said helpfully.

"Actually Danny, some people do," Sam said. "Looking in the 'Sighting' forum isn't going to get you anywhere. Go there," she said, pointing to another board beneath it. Danny smiled sheepishly and moved on to it.

In some of the other forums, such as discussion and hunter forums, there was more workable information. Some of it was more of the same babble that hurt Danny's eyes, but the rest… he could probably learn from this stuff. That was one thing that he would definitely need to do if he wanted to figure anything out. If he ever wanted to be anything more than a 'ghost kid'.

The three of them agreed not to give too much information on the nature of their own work. If any of these experts found out a ghost was looking up things on this forum.

"What do you guys think about ProudTechLover?" Tucker asked a while later.

"It sounds like it fits you," Sam said, reading a small theory someone had written and shaking her head sadly. It was almost humorous how much she knew about ghosts nowadays when she used to believe they were dull fantasies popularized by the Hollywood big shots. "Your username? As long as you don't spell lover with a 'u', we'll be peachy."

"Spell it however you want, Tucker," Danny said, smiling. "She owes us. Don't think I already forgot about what you did, either."

Sam cringed under that accusatory glances, but inwardly she smiled. Danny seemed happy enough, and she was feeling better by the day after Cyrus's attempts. If only she could really see what was going on in Danny's troubled thoughts…

* * *

It was dark, but then, that was to be expected. It was long into the night, and the city lights that would normally illuminate the area from its distance were hidden by clouds coming to bring summer's first storms to Amity Park.

Ten minutes past midnight, and Vlad's patience was beginning to wear thin again.

He stood with his hands behind his back for now, waiting, an expression of utmost annoyance plastered on his defined features. Not as though this was able to be seen; Vlad Masters was currently invisible, waiting for his employee to arrive at the rendezvous area. He was a businessman who enjoyed the theatrics of appearing after his inferiors had arrived.

Waiting just wasn't Plasmius's style.

They had been scheduled to meet ten minutes ago now, and he hadn't shown up. He was waiting on the outskirts of Amity Park, possible a half mile beyond the city limits. Really, he didn't expect it to be that difficult to find, especially for one of the rare intellectual ghosts. There were many things he wanted to ask Cyrus, and many things he wanted to chastise him for. The ghost had disobeyed direct orders and Vlad was very much not enjoying that.

On the bright side – wow, those words were relatively fresh in the man's vocabulary – Cyrus had made the stir he'd requested of him to make. If he knew his emissary well enough, then things were going mostly according to plan. At least one major event had occurred that had made headlines all over the Northern states. A mysterious ghost attack involving several instances of strange human behavior, as well as the now famous Danny Phantom… it wasn't much talk in the rest of the world, but here he could almost smell the tension considered that it was probably for the best that more people remain in the city.

Fifteen minutes now.

A rustle and the sound of a couple of snapping twigs reached Plasmius's pointed ears from the right. More visible than a human would be thanks to his ethereal glow, Cyrus appeared in his usual attire of a black robe. "Plasmius?" he called in a youthful voice that defied his true age.

The half ghost didn't know exactly how old the man was, but it was not necessary to know. The ghost was bound into service with Plasmius, and that was all he needed out of him.

Still invisible, he walked through a tree that was in his path and faded back into view and solidity. "You're late," he growled. "Very late, actually."

"My apologies, sir," replied Cyrus without remorse. "I was detained by an unexpected visit from the ghost hunter you so very much detest. The other, as well, proved slightly difficult to detain. The one you hold attachment to."

Plasmius narrowed his eyes. "How on this plane could a bumbling lunatic like him keep you at bay? Your abilities –"

"Are most powerful, aren't they?" Cyrus interrupted. "But any power that becomes overused will begin to fail. Rest easy, Plasmius."

"Do not patronize me, Cyrus!" Vlad exclaimed. For a ghost with an extremely military mind, he easily forgot his place. "Must I remind you of the image?"

Cyrus's eyes bore into Plasmius's before he answered. "No. Believe me, sir, when I say that it is not an easy thing for one to forget."

"Thank you," he replied. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and said, "How is your job fairing?"

A satisfied grin slowly formed on Cyrus's features. "Oh, quite well I should say. Almost everything that you told me about the boy is true. Especially the technique you told me to use to stop him in his track," he added, remembering how simple it was to wrap his hand around his small neck and catch him in midair. "That was rather enjoyable."

"Really," Vlad muttered under his breath. "And how many times have you encountered him?"

"Thrice."

"And?"

"The results are as we desired them."

Vlad nodded. "Good, good. I'd like more, though," he said, taking a seat on a large boulder. "And I have one complaint."

Cyrus raised an eyebrow… or at least, the part of his face where an eyebrow was supposed to be. "Something does not satisfy you, sir?"

"No, something does not satisfy me. There was a young woman in red at the incident six days ago, was there not?"

At the bottom of Cyrus's neck was a silver clasp that held his robe closed around his body. Lazily, he fingered it and thought this over. "I believe there might have been. A foolish human, I easily took seize of her. She seems to think she's quite strong."

For a human, she was, Vlad had to give her that. Valerie Gray was constantly proving to be a better ghost huntress than he had expected. "I would prefer that you not do something like that to her again," Vlad said diplomatically. "She's a rather important and expensive piece if you understand what I am saying."

"But it disturbed the child so much to see her behave in that way. It would be a tactical advantage, would it not?"

"You are simply to fight the boy," Vlad reiterated, fingers glowing pink ominously. "And to do whatever else is needed to catch his attention to you. Do not physically or mentally harm either of the women and I will not have any problems with you whatsoever."

Cyrus inhaled deeply through his nose and lowered his hand from his breast. "Yes, sir," he replied evenly. "Is that all you wish to discuss?"

Vlad took the chance to think that over. "One last thing before I dismiss you."

* * *

_God, that final scene was death to write. It really was. Originally I was going to write the meeting first, then a battle between Cyrus and Danny afterwards. I couldn't quite work with that so after a little tweaking and the addition of a random scene I'd written in the car a few days ago (the yearbook thing) It finally got up. I hope you're all satisfied with it._

**_See you in the afterlife,_**

**_Saramis Kismet_**


End file.
